BT  653  . B4 5  1914 

Benson,  Robert  Hugh,  1871- 
1914  . 

Lourdes 


I 


XTbe  Catholic  Xibrarp— 12 


LOURDES. 


ROEHAMPTON  : 
PRINTED  BY  JOHN  GRIFFIN. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/lourdesOObens 


THE  BASILICA.  FRONT  VIEW 


LOURDES 


BY 

THE  VERY  REV.  MONSIGNOR 

ROBERT  HUGH  BENSON 


n 


WITH  EIGHT  FULL  PAGE  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Second  Impression 


LONDON  : 

THE  MANRESA  PRESS,  ROEHAMPTON,  S.W. 
B.  HERDER,  68,  GREAT  RUSSELL  STREET,  W.C, 

1914 


IRtbil  ©bstat: 

S.  GEORGIUS  KIERAN  HYLAND,  S.T.D., 

CENSOR  DEPUTATUS 


imprimatur : 

GU  LI  ELM  US  F.  BROWN, 

VlCARIUS  GeNERALIS, 

South  warcensi. 


£5  Mali,  1914. 


PREFACE. 


SINCE  writing  the  following  pages  six  years  ago, 
I  have  had  the  privilege  of  meeting  a  famous 
French  scientist — to  whom  we  owe  one  of  the  great¬ 
est  discoveries  of  recent  years — who  has  made  a 
special  study  of  Lourdes  and  its  phenomena,  and 
of  hearing  him  comment  upon  what  takes  place 
there.  He  is,  himself,  at  present,  not  a  practising 
Catholic;  and  this  fact  lends  peculiar  interest  to 
his  opinions.  His  conclusions,  so  far  as  he  has 
formulated  them,  are  as  follows : 

( 1 )  That  no  scientific  hypothesis  up  to  the  pre¬ 
sent  accounts  satisfactorily  for  the  phenomena. 
Upon  his  saying  this  to  me  I  breathed  the  word 
“  suggestion  ” ;  and  his  answer  was  to  laugh  in  my 
face,  and  to  tell  me,  practically,  that  this  is  the  most 
ludicrous  hypothesis  of  all. 

(2)  That,  so  far  as  he  can  see,  the  one  thing 
necessary  for  such  cures  as  he  himself  has  witnessed 
or  verified,  is  the  atmosphere  of  prayer.  Where 
this  rises  to  intensity  the  number  of  cures  rises  with 
it;  where  this  sinks,  the  cures  sink  too. 


VI 


PREFACE 


(3)  That  he  is  inclined  to  think  that  there  is 
a  transference  of  vitalizing  force  either  from  the 
energetic  faith  of  the  sufferer,  or  from  that  of  the 
bystanders.  He  instanced  an  example  in  which  his 
wife,  herself  a  qualified  physician,  took  part.  She 
held  in  her  arms  a  child,  aged  two  and  a  half  years, 
blind  from  birth,  during  the  procession  of  the 
Blessed  Sacrament.  As  the  monstrance  came 
opposite,  tears  began  to  stream  from  the  child’s 
eyes,  hitherto  closed.  When  it  had  passed,  the 
child’s  eyes  were  open  and  seeing.  This  Mme.  — — 
tested  by  dangling  her  bracelet  before  the  child, 
who  immediately  clutched  at  it,  but,  from  the  fact 
that  she  had  never  learned  to  calculate  distance, 
at  first  failed  to  seize  it.  At  the  close  of  the  pro¬ 
cession  Mme.  - who  herself  related  to  me  the 

story,  was  conscious  of  an  extraordinary  exhaustion 
for  which  there  was  no  ordinary  explanation.  I 
give  this  suggestion  as  the  scientist  gave  it  to  me 
— the  suggestion  of  some  kind  of  transference  of 
vitality;  and  make  no  comment  upon  it,  beyond 
saying  that,  superficially  at  any  rate,  it  does  not  ap¬ 
pear  to  me  to  conflict  with  the  various  accounts 
of  miracles  given  in  the  Gospel  in  which  the  faith 
of  the  bystanders,  as  well  as  of  sufferers,  ap¬ 
peared  to  be  as  integral  an  element  in  the  miracle  as 
the  virtue  which  worked  it. 

Owing  to  the  time  that  has  elapsed  since  the 


PREFACE 


Vll 


following  pages  were  written  for  the  Ave  Maria — 
by  the  kindness  of  whose  editor  they  are  reprinted 
now — it  is  impossible  for  me  to  verify  the  spelling 
of  all  the  names  that  occur  in  the  course  of  the 
narrative.  I  made  notes  while  at  Lourdes,  and 
from  those  notes  wrote  my  account it  is  therefore 
extremely  probable  that  small  errors  of  spelling 
may  have  crept  in,  which  I  am  now  unable  to 
correct. 

Robert  Hugh  Benson. 

Church  oj  our  Lady  of  Lourdes , 

Neu  York , 

Lent ,  1914 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


THE  BASILICA.  FRONT  VIEW  . 

DR.  BOISSARIE . 

BUREAU  DES  CONST  AT  ATIONS  . 
THE  GROTTO  IN  I  858  . 

THE  GROTTO  IN  I  9  I  4  . 

THE  BLESSING  OF  THE  SICK 
THE  BASILICA.  SIDE  VIEW  . 


Frontispiece 
to  face  p .  16 
„  26 

>,  36 

>,  46 

v  56 
„  66 
„  78 


BERNADETTE 


I. 


The  first  sign  of  our  approach  to  Lourdes  was  a 
vast  wooden  cross,  crowning  a  pointed  hill.  We 
had  been  travelling  all  day,  through  the  August 
sunlight,  humming  along  the  straight  French  roads 
beneath  the  endless  avenues ;  now  across  a  rich 
plain,  with  the  road  banked  on  either  side  to  avert 
the  spring  torrents  from  the  Pyrenees ;  now  again 
mounting  and  descending  a  sudden  shoulder  of 
hill.  A  few  minutes  ago  we  had  passed  into  Tarbes, 
the  cathedral  city  of  the  diocese  in  which  Lourdes 
lies ;  and  there,  owing  to  a  little  accident,  we  had 
been  obliged  to  halt,  while  the  wheels  of  the  car 
were  lifted,  with  incredible  ingenuity,  from  the 
deep  gutter  into  which  the  chauffeur  had,  with  the 
best  intentions,  steered  them.  It  was  here,  in  the 
black  eyes,  the  dominant  profiles,  the  bright  colours, 
the  absorbed  childish  interest  of  the  crowd,  in  their 
comments,  their  laughter,  their  seriousness,  and 
their  accent,  that  the  South  showed  itself  almost 
unmixed.  It  was  market-day  in  Tarbes ;  and  when 
once  more  we  were  on  our  way,  we  still  went 
slowly ;  passing,  almost  all  the  way  into  Lourdes 
itself,  a  long-drawn  procession — carts  and  foot 
B 


2 


LOURDES 


passengers,  oxen,  horses,  dogs,  and  children — draw¬ 
ing  nearer  every  minute  toward  that  ring  of  solemn 
blue  hills  that  barred  the  view  to  Spain. 

It  is  difficult  to  describe  with  what  sensations 
I  came  to  Lourdes.  As  a  Christian  man,  I  did 
not  dare  to  deny  that  miracles  happened;  as  a 
reasonably  humble  man,  I  did  not  dare  to  deny 
that  they  happened  at  Lourdes;  yet,  I  suppose, 
my  attitude  even  up  to  now  had  been  that  of  a 
reverent  agnostic — the  attitude,  in  fact,  of  a 
majority  of  Christians  on  this  particular  point — 
Christians,  that  is,  who  resemble  the  Apostle 
Thomas  in  his  less  agreeable  aspect.  I  had  heard 
and  read  a  good  deal  about  psychology,  about  the 
effect  of  mind  on  matter  and  of  nerves  on  tissue; 
I  had  reflected  upon  the  infection  of  an  ardent 
crowd;  I  had  read  Zola’s  dishonest  book;1  and 

1  The  epithet  is  deliberate.  He  relates  in  his  book, 
“  Lourdes,”  the  story  of  an  imaginary  case  of  a  girl, 
suffering  from  tuberculosis,  who  goes  to  Lourdes  as  a  pil¬ 
grim,  and  is,  apparently,  cured  of  her  disease.  It  breaks 
out,  however,  again  during  her  return  home;  and  the  case 
would  appear  therefore  to  be  one  of  those  in  which,  owing 
to  fierce  excitement  and  the  mere  power  of  suggestion, 
there  is  a  temporary  amelioration,  but  no  permanent,  or 
supernatural,  cure.  Will  it  be  believed  that  the  details  of 
this  story,  all  of  which  are  related  with  great  particularity, 
and  observed  by  Zola  himself,  were  taken  from  an  actual 
case  that  occurred  during  one  of  his  visits — all  the  details 
except  the  relapse?  There  was  no  relapse:  the  cure  was 
complete  and  permanent.  When  Dr.  Boissarie  later  ques¬ 
tioned  the  author  as  to  the  honesty  of  this  literary  device, 
saying  that  he  had  understood  fiim  to  have  stated  that 


LOURDES 


3 


these  things,  coupled  with  the  extreme  difficulty 
which  the  imagination  finds  in  realizing  what 
it  has  never  experienced — since,  after  all,  miracles 
are  confessedly  miraculous,  and  therefore  unusual 
— the  effect  of  all  this  was  to  render  my  mental 
state  a  singularly  detached  one.  I  believed?  Yes, 
I  suppose  so ;  but  it  was  a  halting  act  of  faith  pure 
and  simple ;  it  was  not  yet  either  sight  or  real 
conviction. 

The  cross,  then,  was  the  first  glimpse  of  Lourdes’ 
presence;  and  ten  minutes  later  we  were  in  the 
town  itself. 

Lourdes  is  not  beautiful,  though  it  must  once 
have  been.  It  was  once  a  little  Franco-Spanish 
town,  set  in  the  lap  of  the  hills,  with  a  swift,  broad, 
shallow  stream,  the  Gave,  flowing  beneath  it.  It 
is  now  cosmopolitan,  and  therefore  undistin¬ 
guished.  As  we  passed  slowly  through  the  crowded 
streets — for  the  National  Pilgrimage  was  but  now 
arriving — we  saw  endless  rows  of  shops  and  booths 
sheltering  beneath  tall  white  blank  houses,  as 
correct  and  as  expressionless  as  a  brainless,  well- 

he  had  come  to  Lourdes  for  the  purpose  of  an  impartial 
investigation,  Zola  answered  that  the  characters  in  the  book 
were  his  own,  and  that  he  could  make  them  do  what  he 
liked.  It  is  on  these  principles  that  the  book  is  con¬ 
structed.  It  must  be  added  that  Zola  followed  up  the 
case,  and  had  communications  with  the  miraculee  long  after 
her  cure  had  been  shown  to  be  permanent,  and  before  his 
book  appeared. 


4 


LOURDES 


bred  man.  Here  and  there  we  passed  a  great  hotel. 
The  crowd  about  our  wheels  was  almost  as  cosmo¬ 
politan  as  a  Roman  crowd.  It  was  largely  French, 
as  that  is  largely  Italian;  but  the  Spaniards  were 
there,  vivid-faced  men  and  women,  severe  Britons, 
solemn  Teutons;  and,  I  have  no  doubt,  Italians, 
Belgians,  Flemish  and  Austrians  as  well.  At 
least  I  heard  during  my  three  days’  stay  all  the 
languages  that  I  could  recognize,  and  many  that 
I  could  not.  There  were  many  motor-cars  there 
besides  our  own,  carriages,  carts,  bell-clanging 
trams,  and  the  litters  of  the  sick.  Presently  we 
dismounted  in  a  side  street,  and  set  out  to  walk  to 
the  Grotto,  through  the  hot  evening  sunshine. 

The  first  sign  of  sanctity  that  we  saw,  as  we 
came  out  at  the  end  of  a  street,  was  the  mass  of 
churches  built  on  the  rising  ground  above  the  river. 
Imagine  first  a  great  oval  of  open  ground,  perhaps 
two  hundred  by  three  hundred  yards  in  area, 
crowded  now  with  groups  as  busy  as  ants,  partly 
embraced  by  two  long  white  curving  arms  of 
masonry  rising  steadily  to  their  junction;  at  the 
point  on  this  side  where  the  ends  should  meet  if 
they  were  prolonged,  stands  a  white  stone  image 
of  Our  Lady  upon  a  pedestal,  crowned,  and  half 
surrounded  from  beneath  by  some  kind  of  metallic 
garland  arching  upward.  At  the  farther  end  the 
two  curves  of  masonry  of  which  I  have  spoken, 


LOURDES 


5 


rising  all  the  way  by  steps,  meet  upon  a  terrace. 
This  terrace  is,  so  to  speak,  the  centre  of  gravity  of 
the  whole. 

For  just  above  it  stands  the  flattened  dome  of 
the  Rosary  Church,  of  which  the  doors  are  beneath 
the  terrace,  placed  upon  broad  flights  of  steps. 
Immediately  above  the  dome  is  the  entrance  to  the 
crypt  of  the  basilica ;  and,  above  that  again, 
reached  by  further  flights  of  steps,  are  the  doors 
of  the  basilica ;  and,  above  it,  the  roof  of  the 
church  itself,  with  its  soaring  white  spire  high  over 
all. 

Let  me  be  frank.  These  buildings  are  not  really 
beautiful.  They  are  enormous,  but  they  are  not 
impressive ;  they  are  elaborate  and  fine  and  white, 
but  they  are  not  graceful.  I  am  not  sure  what  is 
the  matter  with  them;  but  I  think  it  is  that  they 
appear  to  be  turned  out  of  a  machine.  They  are 
too  trim;  they  are  like  a  well-dressed  man  who  is 
not  quite  a  gentleman;  they  are  like  a  wedding 
guest;  they  are  haute-bour geoise ,  they  are  not  the 
nobility.  It  is  a  terrible  pity,  but  I  suppose  it 
could  not  be  helped,  since  they  were  allowed  so 
little  time  to  grow.  There  is  no  sense  of  reflective¬ 
ness  about  them,  no  patient  growth  of  character,  as 
in  those  glorious  cathedrals,  Amiens,  Chartres, 
Beauvais,  which  I  had  so  lately  seen.  There  is  no¬ 
thing  in  reserve;  they  say  everything,  they  suggest 
nothing.  They  have  no  imaginative  vista. 


6 


LOURDES 


We  said  not  one  word  to  one  another.  We 
threaded  our  way  across  the  ground,  diagonally, 
seeing  as  we  went  the  Bureau  de  Constatations  (or 
the  office  where  the  doctors  sit),  contrived  near  the 
left  arm  of  the  terraced  steps;  and  passed  out 
under  the  archway,  to  find  ourselves  with  the 
churches  on  our  left,  and  on  our  right  the  flowing 
Gave,  confined  on  this  side  by  a  terraced  walk, 
with  broad  fields  beyond  the  stream. 

The  first  thing  I  noticed  were  the  three  roofs 
of  the  piscines ,  on  the  left  side  of  the  road,  built 
under  the  cliff  on  which  the  churches  stand.  I 
shall  have  more  to  say  of  them  presently,  but  now 
it  is  enough  to  remark  that  they  resemble  three 
little  chapels,  joined  in  one,  each  with  its  own  door¬ 
way  ;  an  open  paved  space  lies  across  the  entrances, 
where  the  doctors  and  the  priests  attend  upon  the 
sick.  This  open  space  is  fenced  in  all  about,  to 
keep  out  the  crowd  that  perpetually  seethes  there. 
We  went  a  few  steps  farther,  worked  our  way  in 
among  the  people,  and  fell  on  our  knees. 

Overhead,  the  cliff  towered  up,  bare  hanging 
rock  beneath,  grass  and  soaring  trees  above;  and 
at  the  foot  of  the  cliff  a  tall,  irregular  cave.  There 
are  two  openings  of  this  cave ;  the  one,  the  larger, 
is  like  a  cage  of  railings,  with  the  gleam  of  an  altar 
in  the  gloom  beyond,  a  hundred  burning  candles, 
and  sheaves  and  stacks  of  crutches  clinging  to  the 


LOURDES 


7 


broken  roofs  of  rock;  the  other,  and  smaller,  and 
that  farther  from  us,  is  an  opening  in  the  cliff, 
shaped  somewhat  like  a  vesica.  The  grass  still 
grows  there,  with  ferns  and  the  famous  climbing 
shrub;  and  within  the  entrance,  framed  in  it, 
stands  Mary,  in  white  and  blue,  as  she  stood  fifty 
years  ago,  raised  perhaps  twenty  feet  above  the 
ground. 

Ah,  that  image!  ...  I  said,  “As  she  stood 
there!  ”  Yet  it  could  not  have  been  so;  for  surely 
even  simple  Bernadette  would  not  have  fallen  on 
her  knees.  It  is  too  white,  it  is  too  blue;  it  is, 
like  the  three  churches,  placed  magnificently,  yet 
not  impressive;  fine  and  slender,  yet  not  graceful. 

But  we  knelt  there  without  unreality,  with  the 
river  running  swift  behind  us;  for  we  knelt  where 
a  holy  child  had  once  knelt  before  a  radiant  vision, 
and  with  even  more  reason;  for  even  if  the  one,  as 
some  say,  had  been  an  hallucination,  were  those 
sick  folk  an  hallucination?  Was  Pierre  de  Rudder’s 
mended  leg  an  hallucination,  or  the  healed  wounds 
of  Marie  Borel?  Or  were  those  hundreds  upon  hun¬ 
dreds  of  disused  crutches  an  illusion?  Did  sub¬ 
jectivity  create  all  these?  If  so,  what  greater 
miracle  can  be  demanded? 

And  there  was  more  than  that.  For  when  later, 
at  Argeles,  I  looked  over  the  day,  I  was  able  to 
formulate  for  the  first  time  the  extraordinary  im- 


8 


LOURDES 


pressions  that  Lourdes  had  given  me.  There  was 
everything  hostile  to  my  peace — an  incalculable 
crowd,  an  oppressive  heat,  dust,  noise,  weariness ; 
there  was  the  disappointment  of  the  churches  and 
the  image ;  there  was  the  sour  unfamiliarity  of  the 
place  and  the  experience ;  and  yet  I  was  neither 
troubled  nor  depressed  nor  irritated  nor  dis¬ 
appointed.  It  appeared  to  me  as  if  some  great 
benign  influence  were  abroad,  soothing  and  satisfy¬ 
ing;  lying  like  a  great  summer  air  over  all,  to 
quiet  and  to  stimulate.  I  cannot  describe  this 
further;  I  can  only  say  that  it  never  really  left  me 
during  those  three  days,  I  saw  sights  that  would 
have  saddened  me  elsewhere — apparent  injustices, 
certain  disappointments,  dashed  hopes  that  would 
almost  have  broken  my  heart;  and  yet  that  great 
Power  was  over  all,  to  reconcile,  to  quiet  and  to 
reassure.  To  leave  Lourdes  at  the  end  was  like 
leaving  home. 

After  a  few  minutes  before  the  Grotto,  we 
climbed  the  hill  behind,  made  an  appointment  for 
my  Mass  on  the  morrow ;  and,  taking  the  car  again, 
moved  slowly  through  the  crowded  streets,  and 
swiftly  along  the  country  roads,  up  to  Argeles, 
nearly  a  dozen  miles  away. 


II. 


We  were  in  Lourdes  again  next  morning  a  little 
after  six  o’clock ;  and  already  it  might  have  been 
high  noon,  for  the  streets  were  one  moving  mass 
of  pilgrims.  From  every  corner  came  gusts  of 
singing;  and  here  and  there  through  the  crowd 
already  moved  the  brancardiers — men  of  every 
nation  with  shoulder-straps  and  cross — bearing  the 
litters  with  their  piteous  burdens. 

I  was  to  say  Mass  in  the  crypt ;  and  when  I 
arrived  there  at  last,  the  church  was  full  from  end 
to  end.  The  interior  was  not  so  disappointing  as 
I  had  feared.  It  had  a  certain  solid  catacombic 
gloom  beneath  its  low  curved  roof,  which,  if  it  had 
not  been  for  the  colours  and  some  of  the  details, 
might  very  nearly  have  come  from  the  hand  of  a 
good  architect.  The  arrangements  for  the  pilgrims 
were  as  bad  as  possible ;  there  was  no  order,  no 
marshalling ;  they  moved  crowd  against  crowd  like 
herds  of  bewildered  sheep.  Some  were  for  Com¬ 
munion,  some  for  Mass  only,  some  for  confession ; 
and  they  pushed  patiently  this  way  and  that  in 
every  direction.  It  was  a  struggle  before  I  got 
my  vestments ;  I  produced  a  letter  from  the  Bishop 


10 


LOURDES 


of  Rodez,  with  whom  I  had  lunched  a  few  days 
before ;  I  argued,  I  deprecated,  I  persuaded,  I 
quoted.  Everything  once  more  was  against  my 
peace  of  mind;  yet  I  have  seldom  said  Mass  with 
more  consolations  than  in  that  tiny  sanctuary  of 
the  high  Altar.  .  .  An  ecclesiastic  served,  and  an 
old  priest  knelt  devoutly  at  a  prie-Dieu. 

When  the  time  for  Communion  came,  I  turned 
about  and  saw  but  one  sea  of  faces  stretching  from 
the  altar  rail  into  as  much  of  the  darkness  as  I 
could  discern.  For  a  quarter  of  an  hour  I  gave 
Communion  rapidly ;  then,  as  soon  as  another 
priest  could  force  his  way  through  the  crowd,  I 
continued  Mass ;  he  had  not  nearly  finished  giving 
Communion  when  I  had  ended  my  thanksgiving. 
This,  too,  was  the  same  everywhere — in  the  crypt, 
in  the  basilica,  in  the  Rosary  Church,  and  above 
all  in  the  Grotto.  The  average  number  of  Com¬ 
munions  every  day  throughout  the  year  in  Lourdes 
is,  I  am  told,  four  thousand.  In  that  year  of 
Jubilee,  however,  Dr.  Boissarie  informed  me,  in 
round  numbers,  one  million  Communions  were 
made,  sixty  thousand  Masses  were  said,  with  two 
thousand  Communions  at  each  midnight  Mass.  .  . 
Does  Jesus  Christ  go  out  when  Mary  comes  in? 
We  are  told  so  by  non-Catholics.  Rather,  it  seems 
as  if,  like  the  Wise  Men  of  old,  men  still  find  the 
Child  with  Mary  His  Mother. 


LOURDES 


ii 


At  the  close  of  my  Mass,  the  old  priest  rose 
from  his  place  and  began  to  prepare  the  vessels 
and  arrange  the  Missal.  As  soon  as  I  took  off  the 
vestments  he  put  them  on.  I  assented  passively, 
supposing  him  to  be  the  next  on  the  list;  I  even 
answered  his  Kyrie.  But  at  the  Collect  a  frantic 
sacristan  burst  through  the  crowd;  and  from  re¬ 
marks  made  to  the  devout  old  priest  and  myself, 
I  learned  that  the  next  on  the  list  was  still  waiting 
in  the  sacristy,  and  that  this  old  man  was  an  adroit 
though  pious  interloper  who  had  determined  not  to 
take  “  No  ”  for  an  answer.  He  finished  his  Mass. 
I  forbear  from  comment. 

For  a  while  afterward  we  stood  on  the  terrace 
above  the  piscines: ;  and,  indeed,  after  breakfast  I 
returned  here  again  alone,  and  remained  during  all 
the  morning.  It  was  an  extraordinary  sight. 
From  the  terrace,  the  cliff  fell  straight  away  down 
to  the  roofs  of  the  three  chapel- like  buildings, 
fifty  or  sixty  feet  beneath.  Beyond  that  I  could 
see  the  paved  space,  sprinkled  with  a  few  moving 
figures ;  and,  beyond  the  barrier,  the  crowd  stretch¬ 
ing  across  the  roadway  and  far  on  either  side.  Be¬ 
hind  them  was  the  clean  river  and  the  green 
meadows,  all  delicious  in  the  early  sunlight. 

During  that  morning  I  must  have  seen  many 
hundreds  of  the  sick  carried  into  the  baths ;  for 
there  were  almost  two  thousand  sick  in  Lourdes  on 


12 


LOURDES 


that  day.  I  could  even  watch  their  faces,  white 
and  drawn  with  pain,  or  horribly  scarred,  as  they 
lay  directly  beneath  me,  “  waiting  for  some  man 
to  put  them  into  the  water.”  I  saw  men  and  women 
of  all  nations  and  all  ranks  attending  upon  them, 
carrying  them  tenderly,  fanning  their  faces,  wiping 
their  lips,  giving  them  to  drink  of  the  Grotto  water. 
A  murmur  of  thousands  of  footsteps  came  up  from 
beneath  (this  National  Pilgrimage  of  France  num¬ 
bered  between  eighty  and  an  hundred  thousand 
persons) ;  and  loud  above  the  footsteps  came  the 
cries  of  the  priests,  as  they  stood  in  a  long  row 
facing  the  people,  with  arms  extended  in  the  form 
of  a  cross.  Now  and  again  came  a  far-off  roar  of 
singing  from  the  Grotto  to  my  left,  where  Masses 
were  said  continuously  by  bishops  and  favoured 
priests;  or  from  my  right,  from  the  great  oval 
space  beneath  the  steps;  and  then,  on  a  sudden  a 
great  chorus  of  sound  from  beneath,  as  the  Gloria 
Patri  burst  out  when  the  end  of  some  decade  was 
reached.  All  about  us  was  the  wheeling  earth,  the 
Pyrenees  behind,  the  meadows  in  front;  and  over 
us  heaven,  with  Mary  looking  down. 

Once  from  beneath  during  that  long  morning 
I  heard  terrible  shrieks,  as  of  a  demoniac,  that  died 
into  moans  and  ceased.  And  once  I  saw  a  little 
procession  go  past  from  the  Grotto,  with  the 
Blessed  Sacrament  in  the  midst.  There  was  no 


LOURDES 


13 


sensation,  no  singing.  The  Lord  of  all  went  simply 
by  on  some  errand  of  mercy,  and  men  fell  on  their 
knees  and  crossed  themselves  as  He  went. 

After  dejeuner  at  the  Hotel  Moderne,  where  now 
it  was  decided  that  we  should  stay  until  the  Mon¬ 
day,  we  went  down  to  the  Bureau.  At  first  there  were 
difficulties  made,  as  the  doctors  were  not  come ; 
and  I  occupied  a  little  while  in  watching  the  litters 
unloaded  from  the  wagonettes  that  brought  them 
gently  down  to  within  a  hundred  yards  of  the 
Grotto.  Once  indeed  I  was  happy  to  be  able  to 
fit  a  brancardied  s  straps  into  the  poles  that  sup¬ 
ported  a  sick  woman.  It  was  all  most  terrible  and 
most  beautiful.  Figure  after  figure  was  passed 
along  the  seats — living  crucifixes  of  pain— and 
lowered  tenderly  to  the  ground,  to  lie  there  a 
moment  or  two,  with  the  body  horribly  flat  and,  as 
it  seemed,  almost  non-existent  beneath  the  cover¬ 
let  ;  and  the  white  face  with  blazing  eyes  of  an¬ 
guish,  or  passive  and  half  dead,  to  show  alone  that 
a  human  creature  lay  there.  Then  one  by  one  each 
was  lifted  and  swung  gently  down  to  the  gate  of 
the  piscines . 

At  about  three  o’clock,  after  an  hour’s  waiting, 
I  succeeded  in  getting  a  certain  card  passed 
through  the  window,  and  immediately  a  message 
came  out  from  Dr.  Cox  that  I  was  to  be  admitted. 
I  passed  through  a  barrier,  through  a  couple  of 


14 


LOURDES 


rooms,  and  found  myself  in  the  Holy  Place  of 
Science,  as  the  Grotto  is  the  Holy  Place  of  Grace. 

It  is  a  little  room  in  which  perhaps  twenty  per¬ 
sons  can  stand  with  comfort.  Again  and  again  I 
saw  more  than  sixty  there.  Down  one  side  runs  a 
table,  at  one  end  of  which  sits  Dr.  Cox ;  in  the 
centre,  facing  the  room,  is  the  presiding  doctor’s 
chair,  where,  as  a  rule,  Dr.  Boissarie  is  to  be  found. 
Dr.  Cox  set  me  between  him  and  the  president,  and 
I  began  to  observe. 

At  the  farther  end  of  the  room  is  a  long  glazed 
case  of  photographs  hung  against  the  wall.  Here 
are  photographs  of  many  of  the  most  famous 
patients.  The  wounds  of  Marie  Borel  are  shown 
there ;  Marie  Borel  herself  had  been  present  in 
the  Bureau  that  morning  to  report  upon  her  ex¬ 
cellent  health.  (She  was  cured  last  year  instan¬ 
taneously,  in  the  piscine ,  of  a  number  of  running 
wounds,  so  deep  that  they  penetrated  the  intes¬ 
tines.)  On  the  table  lay  some  curious  brass  objects, 
which  I  learned  later  were  models  of  the  bones  of 
Pierre  de  Rudder’s  legs.  (This  man  had  for  eight 
years  suffered  from  a  broken  leg  and  two  running 
wounds — one  at  the  fracture,  the  other  on  the  foot. 
These  were  gangrenous.  The  ends  of  the  broken 
bones  were  seen  immediately  before  the  cure,  which 
took  place  instantaneously  at  the  shrine  of  Our 
Lady  of  Lourdes  at  Oostacker.  Pierre  lived  rather 


LOURDES 


15 


over  twenty  years  after  his  sudden  and  complete 
restoration  to  health).  For  the  rest,  the  room  is 
simple  enough.  There  are  a  few  chairs.  Another 
door  leads  into  a  little  compartment  where  the  sick 
can  be  examined  privately ;  a  third  and  a  fourth 
lead  into  the  open  air  on  either  side.  There  are 
two  windows,  looking  out  respectively  on  this  side 
and  that. 

Now  I  spent  a  great  deal  of  my  time  in  the 
Bureau.  (I  was  given  presently  a  “  doctor’s  cross  ” 
to  wear — consisting  of  a  kind  of  cardboard  with  a 
white  upright  and  red  cross-bar — so  that  I  could 
pass  in  and  out  as  I  wished).  I  may  as  well,  then, 
sum  up  once  and  for  all  the  impressions  I  received 
from  observing  the  methods  of  the  doctors.  There 
were  all  kinds  of  doctors  there  continually — 
Catholics  and  free-thinkers,  old,  young,  middle- 
aged.  The  cases  were  discussed  with  the  utmost 
freedom.  Any  could  ask  questions  of  the  ??iiracules 
or  of  the  other  doctors.  The  certificates  of  the  sick 
were  read  aloud.  I  may  observe,  too,  that  if  there 
was  any  doubt  as  to  the  certificates,  if  there  was 
any  question  of  a  merely  nervous  malady,  any  con¬ 
ceivable  possibility  of  a  mistake,  the  case  was  dis¬ 
missed  abruptly.  These  certificates,  then,  given 
by  the  doctor  attending  the  sick  person,  dated  and 
signed,  are  of  the  utmost  importance ;  for  without 
them  no  cure  is  registered.  Yet,  in  spite  of  these 


i6 


LOURDES 


demands,  I  saw  again  and  again  sixty  or  seventy 
men,  dead  silent,  staring,  listening  with  all  their 
ears,  while  some  poor  uneducated  man  or  woman, 
smiling  radiantly,  gave  a  little  history  or  answered 
the  abrupt  kindly  questions  of  the  presiding  doctor. 

Again,  and  again,  too,  it  seemed  to  me  that  all 
this  had  been  enacted  before.  There  was  once 
upon  a  time  a  man  born  blind  who  received  his 
sight,  and  round  him  there  gathered  keen-eyed 
doctors  of  another  kind.  They  tried  to  pose  him 
with  questions.  It  was  unheard  of,  they  cried, 
that  a  man  born  blind  should  receive  his  sight;  at 
least  it  could  not  have  been  as  he  said.  Yet  there 
stood  the  man  in  the  midst,  seeing  them  as  they 
saw  him,  and  giving  his  witness.  “  This,”  he  said, 
“  was  the  way  it  was  done.  Such  and  such  is  the 
name  of  the  Man  who  cured  me.  And  look  for 
yourselves!  I  was  blind;  now  I  see.” 

After  I  had  looked  and  made  notes  and  asked 
questions  of  Dr.  Cox,  Dr.  Boissarie  came  in.  I 
was  made  known  to  him ;  and  presently  he  took  me 
aside,  with  a  Scottish  priest  (who  all  through  my 
stay  showed  me  great  kindness),  and  began  to  ask 
me  questions.  It  seemed  that,  since  there  was  no 
physical  miracule  present  just  now,  a  spiritual 
miracuU  would  do  as  well ;  for  he  asked  me  a 
hundred  questions  as  to  my  conversion  and  its 
causes,  and  what  part  prayer  played  in  it ;  and  the 


DR.  BOISSARIE 


LOURDES 


17 


doctors  crowded  round  and  listened  to  my  halting 
French. 

“It  was  the  need  of  a  divine  Leader — an 
authority — then,  that  brought  you  in?” 

“Yes,  it  was  that;  it  was  the  position  of  St. 
Peter  in  the  Scriptures  and  in  history;  it  was  the 
supernatural  unity  of  the  Church.  It  is  impossible 
to  say  exactly  which  argument  predominated.’’ 

“  It  was,  in  fact,  the  grace  of  God,”  smiled  the 
Doctor. 

Dr.  Boissarie,  as  also  Dr.  Cox,  was  extremely 
good  to  me.  He  is  an  oldish  man,  with  a  keen, 
clever,  wrinkled  face ;  he  is  of  middle-size,  and 
walks  very  slowly  and  deliberately ;  he  is  a  fervent 
Catholic.  He  is  very  sharp  and  businesslike,  but 
there  is  an  air  of  wonderful  goodness  and  kindness 
about  him ;  he  takes  one  by  the  arm  in  a  very 
pleasant  manner;  I  have  seen  dilatory,  rambling 
patients  called  to  their  senses  in  an  instant,  yet 
never  frightened. 

Dr.  Cox,  who  has  been  at  Lourdes  for  fourteen 
years,  is  a  typical  Englishman,  ruddy,  with  a  white 
moustache.  His  part  is  mostly  secretarial,  it  seems; 
though  he  too  asks  questions  now  and  again.  It 
was  he  who  gave  me  the  “  doctor’s  cross,”  and 
who  later  obtained  for  me  an  even  more  exceptional 
favour,  of  which  I  shall  speak  in  the  proper  place. 

I  heard  a  tale  that  he  himself  had  been  cured  of 


C 


i8 


LOURDES 


some  illness  at  Lourdes,  but  I  cannot  vouch  for 
it  as  true.  I  did  not  like  to  ask  him  outright. 

Presently  from  outside  came  the  sound  of 
organized  singing,  and  the  room  began  to  empty. 
The  afternoon  procession  was  coming.  I  ran  to 
the  window  that  looks  toward  the  Grotto;  and 
there,  sitting  by  an  Assumptionist  Father — one  of 
that  Order  who  once  had,  officially,  charge  of  the 
Grotto,  and  now  unofficially  assists  at  it — I  saw  the 
procession  go  past. 

I  have  no  idea  of  its  numbers.  I  saw  only  be¬ 
yond  the  single  line  of  heads  outside  the  window, 
an  interminable  double  stream  of  men  go  past,  each 
bearing  a  burning  taper  and  singing  as  he  came. 
There  were  persons  of  every  kind  in  that  stream — 
groups  of  boys  and  young  men,  with  their  priest 
beating  time  in  the  midst ;  middle-aged  men  and 
old  men.  I  saw  again  and  again  that  kind  of  face 
which  a  foolish  Briton  is  accustomed  to  regard  as 
absurd — a  military,  musketeer  profile,  immense 
moustaches  and  imperial,  and  hair  en  brosse .  Yet 
indeed  there  was  nothing  absurd.  It  was  terribly 
moving,  and  a  lump  rose  in  my  throat,  as  I  watched 
such  a  sanguine  bristling  face  as  one  of  these,  all 
alight  with  passion  and  adoration.  Such  a  man 
might  be  a  grocer,  or  a  local  mayor,  or  a  duke; 
it  was  all  one;  he  was  a  child  of  Mary;  and  he 
loved  her  with  all  his  heart,  and  Gabriel’s  salute 


LOURDES 


19 


was  on  his  lips.  Then  the  priests  began  to  come; 
long  lines  of  them  in  black;  then  white  cottas; 
then  gleams  of  purple ;  then  a  pectoral  cross  or 
two ;  and  last  the  great  canopy  swaying  with  all  its 
bells  and  tassels. 


III. 


Now,  it  is  at  the  close  of  the  afternoon  pro¬ 
cession  that  the  sick  more  usually  are  healed.  I 
crossed  the  Bureau  to  the  other  window  that  looks 
on  to  what  I  will  call  the  square,  and  began  to 
watch  for  the  reappearance  of  the  procession  on 
that  side.  In  front  of  me  was  a  dense  crowd  of 
heads,  growing  more  dense  every  step  up  to  the 
barriers  that  enclose  the  open  space  in  the  midst. 
It  was  beyond  those  barriers,  as  I  knew,  that  the 
sick  were  laid  ready  for  the  passing  by  of  Jesus 
of  Nazareth.  On  the  right  rose  the  wide  sweep  of 
steps  and  terraces  leading  up  to  the  basilica,  and 
every  line  of  stone  was  crowned  with  heads.  Even 
on  the  cliffs  beyond,  I  could  see  figures  coming  and 
going  and  watching.  In  all,  about  eighty  thousand 
persons  were  present. 

Presently  the  singing  grew  loud  again ;  the  pro¬ 
cession  had  turned  the  corner  and  entered  the 
square ;  and  I  could  see  the  canopy  moving 
quickly  down  the  middle  toward  the  Rosary 
Church,  for  its  work  was  done.  The  Blessed 
Sacrament  was  now  to  be  carried  round  the  lines 
of  the  sick,  beneath  an  ombrellino . 


LOURDES 


21 


I  shall  describe  all  this  later,  and  more  in 
detail ;  it  is  enough  just  now  to  say  that  the  Blessed 
Sacrament  went  round,  that  It  was  carried  at  last 
to  the  steps  of  the  Rosary  Church,  and  that,  after 
the  singing  of  the  Tantum  Ergo  by  that  enormous 
crowd,  Benediction  was  given.  Then  the  Bureau 
began  to  fill,  and  I  turned  round  for  the  scientific 
aspect  of  the  affair. 

The  first  thing  that  I  saw  was  a  little  girl,  seem¬ 
ing  eight  or  nine  years  old,  who  walked  in  and 
stood  at  the  other  side  of  the  table,  to  be  examined. 
Her  name  was  Marguerite  Vandenabeele — so  I 
read  on  the  certificate — and  she  had  suffered  since 
birth  from  infantile  paralysis,  with  such  a  result 
that  she  was  unable  to  put  her  heels  to  the  ground. 
That  morning  in  the  piscine  she  had  found  herself 
able  to  walk  properly  though  her  heels  were  tender 
from  disuse.  We  looked  at  her — the  doctors  who 
had  begun  again  to  fill  the  room,  and  myself,  with 
three  or  four  more  amateurs.  There  she  stood, 
very  quiet  and  unexcited,  with  a  slightly  flushed 
face.  Some  elder  person  in  charge  of  her  gave 
in  the  certificate  and  answered  the  questions.  Then 
she  went  away.1 

1  La  Voix  de  Lourdes ,  a  semi-official  paper,  gives  the 
following  account  of  her,  in  its  issue  of  the  23rd: 
“  .  .  .  Marguerite  Vandenabeele,  10  ans,  de  Nieurlet, 
hameau  de  Hedezeele,  (Nord),  est  arrivee  avec  un  des 
trains  de  Paris,  portant  un  certificat  du  Docteur  Dantois, 


22 


LOURDES 


Now,  I  must  premise  that  the  cures  that  took 
place  while  I  was  at  Lourdes  that  August  cannot 
yet  be  regarded  as  finally  established,  since  not 
sufficient  time  has  elapsed  for  their  test  and  verifi¬ 
cation^  Occasionally  there  is  a  relapse  soon  after 
the  apparent  cure,  in  the  case  of  certain  diseases 
that  may  be  more  or  less  affected  by  a  nervous  con¬ 
dition  ;  occasionally  claimants  are  found  not  to  be 
cured  at  all.  For  scientific  certainty,  therefore, 
it  is  better  to  rely  upon  cures  that  have  taken  place 
a  year,  or  at  least  some  months  previously,  in  which 
the  restored  health  is  preserved.  There  are,  of 
course  a  large  number  of  such  cases ;  I  shall  come 
to  them  presently.3 

The  next  patient  to  enter  the  room  was  one  Mile. 
Bardou.  I  learned  later  from  her  lips  that  she 
was  a  secularized  Carmelite  nun,  expelled  from  her 
convent  by  the  French  Government.  There  was 

datd  de  St.  Momeleu  (Nord)  le  25  mai,  1908,  la  declar¬ 
ant  atteinte  d'atrophie  de  la  jambe  gauche  avec  pied-bot 
cquin.  Elle  ne  marchait  que  tr£s  difficilement  et  tres 
peniblement.  A  la  sortie  de  la  piscine,  vendredi  soir,  elle 
a  pu  marcher  facilement.  Amende  au  Bureau  Medical,  on 
l’a  debarrassee  de  Tappareil  dans  lequel  etait  enferme  son 
pied.  Depuis,  elle  marche  bien,  et  parait  guerie.” 

2  This  was  written  in  the  autumn  of  the  year  1908,  in 
which  this  visit  of  mine  took  place. 

3  Since  1888  the  registered  cures  are  estimated  as  fol- 


lows : 

’88, 

57; 

’89, 

44; 

’90,  80;  ’91,  53 

;  ’92,  99; 

'93> 

9i; 

’94, 

127; 

’95, 

163;  ’96,  145; 

’97,  163;. 

’98, 

243; 

’99, 

1741 

1900,  160;  ’01,  17 1 ; 

’02,  164; 

’°3> 

161 ; 

’04, 

140; 

’05, 

157;  ’06,  148;  ’ 

07,  109. 

LOURDES 


23 


the  further  pathos  in  her  case  in  the  fact  that  her 
cure,  when  I  left  Lourdes,  was  believed  to  be  at 
least  doubtful.  But  now  she  took  her  seat,  with  a 
radiantly  happy  face,  to  hand  in  her  certificate  and 
answer  the  questions.  She  had  suffered  from  renal 
tuberculosis;  her  certificate  proved  that.  She  was 
here  herself,  without  pain  or  discomfort,  to  prove 
that  she  no  longer  suffered.  Relief  had  come 
during  the  procession.  A  question  or  two  was  put 
to  her ;  an  arrangement  was  made  for  her  return 
after  examination;  and  she  went  out. 

The  room  was  rapidly  filling  now ;  there  were 
forty  or  fifty  persons  present.  There  was  a  sudden 
stir ;  those  who  sat  rose  up ;  and  there  came  into 
the  room  three  bishops  in  purple — from  St.  Paul 
in  Brazil,  the  Bishop  of  Beauvais,  and  the  famous 
orator,  Monseigneur  Touchet,  of  Orleans — all  of 
whom  had  taken  part  in  the  procession.  These  sat 
down,  and  the  examination  went  on. 

The  next  to  enter  was  Juliette  Gosset,  aged 
twenty-five,  from  Paris.  She  had  a  darkish  plain 
face,  and  was  of  middle  size.  She  answered  the 
questions  quietly  enough,  though  there  was  evident 
a  suppressed  excitement  beneath.  She  had  been 
cured  during  the  procession,  she  said ;  she  had 
stood  up  and  walked.  And  her  illness?  She 
showed  a  certificate,  dated  in  the  previous  March, 
asserting  that  she  suffered  gravely  from  tubercu- 


24 


LOURDES 


losis,  especially  in  the  right  lung;  she  added  her¬ 
self  that  hip  disease  had  developed  since  that  time, 
that  one  leg  had  become  seven  centimetres  shorter 
than  the  other,  and  that  she  had  been  for  some 
months  unable  to  sit  or  kneel.  Yet  here  she  walked 
and  sat  without  the  smallest  apparent  discomfort. 
When  she  had  finished  her  tale,  a  doctor  pointed 
out  that  the  certificate  said  nothing  of  any  hip 
disease.  She  assented,  explaining  again  the  reason; 
but  added  that  the  hospital  where  she  lodged  in 
Lourdes  would  corroborate  what  she  said.  Then 
she  disappeared  into  the  little  private  room  to  be 
examined. 

There  followed  a  nun,  pale  and  black-eyed,  who 
made  gestures  as  she  stood  by  Dr.  Boissarie  and 
told  her  story.  She  spoke  very  rapidly.  I  learned 
that  she  had  been  suffering  from  a  severe  internal 
malady,  and  that  she  had  been  cured  instan¬ 
taneously  in  the  piscine.  She  handed  in  her  certi¬ 
ficate,  and  then  she,  too,  vanished. 

After  a  few  minutes  there  returned  the  doctor 
who  had  examined  Juliette  Gosset.  Now,  I  think  it 
should  impress  the  incredulous  that  this  case  was 
pronounced  unsatisfactory,  and  will  not,  probably, 
appear  upon  the  registers.  It  was  perfectly  true 
that  the  girl  had  had  tuberculosis,  and  that  now 
nothing  was  to  be  detected  except  the  very  faintest 
symptom — so  faint  as  to  be  negligible — in  the  right 


LOURDES 


25 


lung.  It  appeared  to  be  true  also  that  she  had 
had  hip  disease,  since  there  were  upon  her  body 
certain  marks  of  treatment  by  burning ;  and  that 
her  legs  were  now  of  an  exactly  equal  length.  But, 
firstly,  the  certificate  was  five  months  old,  secondly, 
it  made  no  mention  of  hip  disease ;  thirdly,  seven 
centimetres  was  almost  too  large  a  measure  to  be 
believed.  The  case  then  was  referred  back  for 
further  investigation;  and  there  it  stood  when  I 
left  Lourdes.  The  doctors  shook  their  heads  con¬ 
siderably  over  the  seven  centimetres. 

There  followed  next  one  of  the  most  curious 
instances  of  all.  It  was  an  old  miroculee  who 
came  back  to  report;  her  case  is  reported  at  length 
in  Dr.  Boissarie’s  CEuvre  de  Lourdes,  on  pages 
299-308. 1  Her  name  was  Marie  Cools,  and  she 
came  from  Anvers,  suffering  apparently  from  mat 
de  Pott ,  and  paralysis  and  anaesthesia  of  the  legs. 
This  state  had  lasted  for  about  three  years.  The 
doctors  consulted  differed  as  to  her  case :  two 
diagnosing  it  as  mentioned  above,  two  as  hysteria. 
For  ten  months  she  had  suffered,  moreover,  from 
constant  feverishness;  she  was  continually  sick, 
and  the  work  of  digestion  was  painful  and  difficult. 
There  was  a  marked  lateral  deviation  of  the  spinal 
column,  with  atrophy  of  the  leg  muscles.  At  the 

1  Mv  notes  are  rather  illegible  at  this  point,  but  I  make 
no  doubt  that  this  was  Marie  Cools. 


26 


LOURDES 


second  bath  she  began  to  improve,  and  the  pains 
in  the  back  ceased ;  at  the  fourth  bath  the  paralysis 
vanished,  her  appetite  came  steadily  back,  and  the 
sickness  ceased.  Now  she  came  in  to  announce 
her  continued  good  health. 

There  are  a  number  of  interesting  facts  as  to  this 
case;  and  the  first  is  the  witness  of  the  infidel 
doctor  who  sent  her  to  Lourdes,  since  it  seemed  to 
him  that  “  religious  suggestion,”  was  the  only  hope 
left.  He,  by  the  way,  had  diagnosed  her  case  as 
one  of  hysteria.  “  It  had  a  result,”  he  writes, 
“  which  I,  though  an  unbeliever,  can  characterize 
only  as  marvellous.  Marie  Cools  returned  com¬ 
pletely,  absolutely  cured.  No  trace  of  paralysis 
or  anaesthesia.  She  is  actually  on  her  feet;  and, 
two  hospital  servants  having  been  stricken  by 
typhoid,  she  is  taking  the  place  of  one  of  them.” 
Another  interesting  fact  is  that  a  positive  storm 
raged  at  Anvers  over  her  cure,  and  that  Dr.  Van 
de  Vorst  was  at  the  ensuing  election  dismissed 
from  the  hospital,  with  at  least  a  suspicion  that  the 
cause  of  his  dismissal  lay  in  his  having  advised 
the  girl  to  go  to  Lourdes  at  all. 

Dr.  Boissarie  makes  an  interesting  comment  or 
two  on  the  case,  allowing  that  it  may  perhaps  have 
been  hysteria,  though  this  is  not  at  all  certain. 
“  When  we  have  to  do  with  nervous  maladies,  we 
must  always  remember  the  rules  of  Benedict  XIV. : 


BUREAU  DES  CON STATATIONS 


■ 


LOURDES 


2  7 


‘  The  miracle  cannot  consist  in  the  cessation  of 
the  crises,  but  in  the  cessation  of  the  nervous  state 
which  produces  them.’  ”  It  is  this  that  has  been 
accomplished  in  the  case  of  Marie  Cools.  And 
again:  “  Either  Marie  Cools  is  not  cured,  or  there 
is  in  her  cure  something  other  than  suggestion,  even 
religious.  It  is  high  time  to  leave  that  tale  alone, 
and  to  cease  to  class  under  the  title  of  religious 
suggestion  two  orders  of  facts  completely  distinct 
— superficial  and  momentary  modifications,  and 
constitutional  modifications  so  profound  that 
science  cannot  explain  them.  I  repeat:  to  make  of 
an  hysterical  patient  one  whose  equilibrium  is  per¬ 
fect  ..  .  .  is  a  thing  more  difficult  than  the  cure 
of  a  wound.” 

So  he  wrote  at  the  time  of  her  apparent  cure, 
hesitating  still  as  to  its  permanence.  And  here, 
before  my  eyes  and  his,  she  stood  again,  healthy 
and  well. 

And  so  at  last  I  went  back  to  dinner.  A  very 
different  scene  followed.  For  a  couple  of  hours 
we  had  been  materialists,  concerning  ourselves  not 
with  what  Mary  had  done  by  grace — at  least  not  in 
that  aspect — but  with  what  nature  showed  to  have 
been  done,  by  whatever  agency,  in  itself.  Now 
once  more  we  turned  to  Mary. 

It  was  dark  when  we  arrived  at  the  square,  but 
the  whole  place  was  alive  with  earthly  lights.  High 


28 


LOURDES 


up  to  our  left  hung  the  church,  outlined  in  fire — 
tawdry,  I  dare  say,  with  its  fairy  lights  of  electri¬ 
city,  yet  speaking  to  three-quarters  of  this  crowd 
in  the  highest  language  they  knew.  Light,  after 
all,  is  the  most  heavenly  thing  we  possess.  Does 
it  matter  so  very  much  if  it  is  decked  out  and 
arranged  in  what  to  superior  persons  appears  a 
finikin  fashion? 

The  crowd  itself  had  become  a  serpent  of  fire, 
writhing  here  below  in  endlessly  intricate  coils ; 
up  there  along  the  steps  and  parapets,  a  long- 
drawn,  slow-moving  line ;  and  from  the  whole  in¬ 
calculable  number  came  gusts  and  roars  of  singing, 
for  each  carried  a  burning  torch  and  sang  with  his 
group.  The  music  was  of  all  kinds.  Now  and 
again  came  the  Laudate  Mariam  from  one  com¬ 
pany,  following  to  some  degree  the  general  move¬ 
ment  of  the  procession,  and  singing  from  little 
paper-books  which  each  read  by  the  light  of  his 
wind-blown  lantern ;  now  the  Gloria  Patri,  as  a 
band  came  past  reciting  the  Rosary ;  but  above  all 
pealed  the  ballad  of  Bernadette,  describing  how 
the  little  child  went  one  day  by  the  banks  of  the 
Gave,  how  she  heard  the  thunderous  sound,  and, 
turning,  saw  the  Lady,  with  all  the  rest  of  the 
sweet  story,  each  stanza  ending  with  that 
Ave,  Ave,  Ave  Maria ! 
that  I  think  will  ring  in  my  ears  till  I  die. 


LOURDES 


29 


It  was  an  astounding  sight  to  see  that  crowd 
and  to  hear  that  singing,  and  to  watch  each  group 
as  it  came  past — now  girls,  now  boys,  now  stalwart 
young  men,  now  old  veteran  pilgrims,  now  a  bent 
old  woman;  each  face  illumined  by  the  soft  paper- 
shrouded  candle,  and  each  mouth  singing  to  Mary. 
Hardly  one  in  a  thousand  of  those  came  to  be  cured 
of  any  sickness ;  perhaps  not  one  in  five  hundred 
had  any  friend  among  the  patients;  yet  here  they 
were,  drawn  across  miles  of  hot  France,  to  give, 
not  to  get.  Can  France,  then,  be  so  rotten? 

As  I  dropped  off  to  sleep  that  night,  the  last 
sound  of  which  I  was  conscious  was'  still  that 
cannon-like  chorus,  coming  from  the  direction  of 
the  square : 


Ave,  Ave,  Ave  Maria ! 
Ave,  Ave,  Ave  Maria ! 


IV. 


I  AWOKE  to  that  singing  again,  in  my  room  above 
the  door  of  the  hotel ;  and  went  down  presently 
to  say  my  Mass  in  the  Rosary  Church,  where,  by 
the  kindness  of  the  Scottish  priest  of  whom  I  have 
spoken,  an  altar  had  been  reserved  for  me.  The 
Rosary  Church  is  tolerably  fine  within.  It  has  an 
immense  flattened  dome,  beyond  which  stands  the 
high  altar;  and  round  about  are  fifteen  chapels 
dedicated  to  the  Fifteen  Mysteries,  which  are 
painted  above  their  respective  altars. 

But  I  was  to  say  Mass  in  a  little  temporary 
chapel  to  the  left  of  the  entrance,  formed,  I  sup¬ 
pose,  out  of  what  usually  serves  as  some  kind  of 
a  sacristy  The  place  was  hardly  forty  feet  long; 
its  high  altar,  at  which  I  both  vested  and  said 
Mass,  was  at  the  farther  end;  but  each  side,  too, 
was  occupied  by  three  priests,  celebrating  simul¬ 
taneously  upon  altar-stones  laid  on  long,  continu¬ 
ous  boards  that  ran  the  length  of  the  chapel.  The 
whole  of  the  rest  of  the  space  was  crammed  to  over¬ 
flowing;  indeed  it  had  been  scarcely  possible  to 
get  entrance  to  the  chapel  at  all,  so  vast  was  the 
crowd  in  the  great  church  outside. 


LOURDES 


3i 


After  breakfast  I  went  down  to  the  Bureau  once 
more,  and  found  business  already  begun.  The 
first  case,  which  was  proceeding  as  I  entered,  was 
that  of  a  woman  (whose  name  I  could  not  catch) 
who  had  been  cured  of  consumption  in  the  previous 
year,  and  who  now  came  back  to  report  a  state  of 
continued  good  health.  Her  brother-in-law  came 
with  her,  and  she  remarked  with  pleasure  that  the 
whole  family  was  now  returning  to  the  practice  of 
religion.  During  this  investigation  I  noticed  also 
Juliette  Gosset  seated  at  the  table,  apparently  in 
robust  health. 

There  followed  Natalie  Audivin,  a  young  woman 
who  declared  that  she  had  been  cured  in  the  pre¬ 
vious  year,  and  that  she  supposed  her  case  had  been 
entered  in  the  books ;  but  at  the  moment,  at  any 
rate,  her  name  could  not  be  found,  and  for  the 
present  the  case  was  dismissed. 

I  now  saw  a  Capuchin  priest  in  the  room — a 
small,  rosy,  bearded  man — and  supposed  that  he 
was  present  merely  as  a  spectator ;  but  a  minute 
or  two  later  Dr.  Boissarie  caught  sight  of  him, 
and  presently  was  showing  him  off  to  me,  much  to 
his  smiling  embarrassment.  He  had  caught  con¬ 
sumption  of  the  intestines,  it  seemed,  some  years 
before,  from  attending  upon  two  of  his  dying 
brethren,  and  had  come  to  Lourdes  almost  at  his 
last  gasp  in  the  year  1900  A.  D.  Here  he  stood, 
smiling  and  rosy. 


32 


LOURDES 


There  followed  Mademoiselle  Madeleine  Laure, 
cured  of  severe  internal  troubles  (I  did  not  catch 
the  details)  in  the  previous  year. 

Presently  the  Bishop  of  Dalmatia  came  in,  and 
sat  in  his  chair  opposite  me,  while  we  heard  the 
account  of  Miss  Noemie  Nightingale,  of  Upper 
Norwood,  cured  in  the  previous  June  of  deafness, 
rising,  in  the  case  of  one  ear  at  least,  from  a  per¬ 
foration  of  the  drum.  She  was  present  at  the 
piscines,  when  on  a  sudden  she  had  felt  excruciat¬ 
ing  pains  in  the  ears.  The  next  she  knew  was  that 
she  heard  the  Magnificat  being  sung  in  honour  of 
her  cure. 

Mademoiselle  Marie  Bardou  came  in  about  this 
time,  and  passed  through  to  the  inner  room  to  be 
examined;  while  we  received  from  a  doctor  a 
report  of  the  lame  child  whom  we  had  seen  on  the 
previous  day.  All  was  as  had  been  said.  She 
could  now  put  her  heels  to  the  ground  and  walk. 
It  seemed  she  had  been  conscious  of  a  sensation 
of  hammering  in  her  feet  at  the  moment  of  the 
cure,  followed  by  a  feeling  of  relief. 

And  so  they  went  on.  Next  came  Mademoiselle 
Eugenie  Meunier,  cured  two  months  before  of 
fistula.  She  had  given  her  certificate  into  the  care 
of  her  cure,  who  could  not  at  this  moment  be  found 
— naturally  enough,  as  she  had  made  no  appoint¬ 
ment  with  him !  — but  she  was  allowed  to  tell  her 


LOURDES 


33 


story,  and  to  show  a  copy  of  her  parish  magazine 
in  which  her  story  was  given.  She  had  had  in  her 
body  one  wound  of  ten  centimetres  in  size.  After 
bathing  one  evening  she  had  experienced  relief ; 
by  the  next  morning  the  wound,  which  had  flowed 
for  six  months,  was  completely  closed,  and  had 
remained  so.  Her  strength  and  appetite  had  re¬ 
turned.  This  cure  had  taken  place  in  her  own 
lodging,  since  her  state  was  such  that  she  was  for¬ 
bidden  to  go  to  the  Grotto. 

The  next  case  was  that  of  a  woman  with 
paralysis,  who  was  entered  provisionally  as  one  of 
the  “  ameliorations.”  She  was  now  able  to  walk, 
but  the  use  of  her  hand  was  not  yet  fully  restored. 
She  was  sent  back  to  the  'piscines,  and  ordered  to 
report  again  later. 

The  next  was  a  boy  of  about  twelve  years  old, 
Hilaire  Ferraud,  cured  of  a  terrible  disease  of  the 
bone  three  years  before.  Until  that  time  he  was 
unable  to  walk  without  support.  He  had  been 
cured  in  the  piscines.  He  had  been  well  ever  since. 
He  followed  the  trade  of  a  carpenter.  And  now 
he  hopped  solemnly,  first  on  one  leg  and  then  on 
the  other,  to  the  door  and  back,  to  show  his  com¬ 
plete  recovery.  Further,  he  had  had  running 
wounds  on  one  leg,  now  healed.  His  statements 
were  verified. 

The  next  was  an  oldish  man,  who  came  accom- 
D 


34 


LOURDES 


panied  by  his  tall,  black-bearded  son,  to  report 
on  his  continued  good  health  since  his  recovery, 
eight  years  previously,  from  neurasthenia  and  in¬ 
sanity.  He  had  had  the  illusion  of  being  per¬ 
secuted,  with  suicidal  tendencies ;  he  had  been  told 
he  could  not  travel  twenty  miles,  and  he  had 
travelled  over  eight  hundred  kilometres,  after  four 
years’  isolation.  He  had  stayed  a  few  months  in 
Lourdes,  bathing  in  the  piscines ,  and  the  obses¬ 
sion  had  left  him.  His  statements  were  verified; 
he  was  congratulated  and  dismissed. 

There  followed  Emma  Mourat  to  report;  and 
then  Madame  Simonet,  cured  eight  years  ago  of 
a  cystic  tumour  in  the  abdomen.  She  had  been 
sitting  in  one  of  the  churches,  I  think,  when  there 
was  a  sudden  discharge  of  matter,  and  a  sense 
of  relief.  On  the  morrow,  after  another  bath,  the 
sense  of  discomfort  had  finally  disappeared. 
During  Madame  Simonet’s  examination,  as  the 
crowd  was  great,  several  persons  were  dismissed 
till  a  later  hour. 

There  followed  another  old  patient  to  report. 
She  had  been  cured  two  years  before  of  myelitis 
and  an  enormous  tumour  that,  after  twenty-two 
years  of  suffering,  had  been  declared  “  incurable  ” 
in  her  certificate.  The  cure  had  taken  place  during 
the  procession,  in  the  course  of  which  she  suddenly 
felt  herself,  she  said,  impelled  to  rise  from  her 


LOURDES 


35 


litter.  Her  appetite  had  returned  and  she  had  en¬ 
joyed  admirable  health  ever  since.  Her  name  was 
looked  up,  and  the  details  verified. 

There  followed  Madame  Frangois  and  some 
doctor’s  evidence.  Nine  years  ago  she  had  been 
cured  of  fistula  in  the  arm.  She  had  been  operated 
upon  five  times ;  finally,  as  her  arm  measured  a 
circumference  of  seventy-two  centimetres,  amputa¬ 
tion  had  been  declared  necessary.  She  had  refused, 
and  had  come  to  Lourdes.  Her  cure  occupied  three 
days,  at  the  end  of  which  her  arm  had  resumed 
its  normal  size  of  twenty-five  centimetres.  She 
showed  her  arm,  with  faint  scars  visible  upon  it ; 
it  was  again  measured  and  found  normal. 

It  was  an  amazing  morning.  Here  I  had  sat  for 
nearly  three  hours,  seeing  with  my  own  eyes  per¬ 
sons  of  all  ages  and  both  sexes,  suffering  from 
every  variety  of  disease,  present  themselves  before 
sixty  or  seventy  doctors,  saying  that  they  had  been 
cured  miraculously  by  the  Mother  of  God.  Various 
periods  had  elapsed  since  their  cures — a  day,  two 
or  three  months,  one  year,  eight  years,  nine  years. 
These  persons  had  been  operated  upon,  treated, 
subjected  to  agonizing  remedies ;  one  or  two  had 
been  declared  actually  incurable ;  and  then,  either 
in  an  instant,  or  during  the  lapse  of  two  or  three 
days,  or  two  or  three  months,  had  been  restored  to 
health  by  prayer  and  the  application  of  a  little 


36 


LOURDES 


water  in  no  way  remarkable  for  physical  qualities. 

What  do  the  doctors  say  to  this?  Some  confess 
frankly  that  it  is  miraculous  in  the  literal  sense 
of  the  term,  and  join  with  the  patients  in  praising 
Mary  and  her  Divine  Son.  Some  say  nothing; 
some  are  content  to  say  that  science  at  its  present 
stage  cannot  account  for  it  all,  but  that  in  a  few 
years,  no  doubt  .  .  .  and  the  rest  of  it.  I  did  not 
hear  any  say  that:  “  He  casteth  out  devils  by  Beel¬ 
zebub,  the  prince  of  devils  ”;  but  that  is  accounted 
for  by  the  fact  that  those  who  might  wish  to  say 
it  do  not  believe  in  Beelzebub. 

But  will  science  ever  account  for  it  all?  That  I 
leave  to  God.  All  that  I  can  say  is  that,  if  so,  it  is 
surely  as  wonderful  as  any  miracle,  that  the  Church 
should  have  hit  upon  a  secret  that  the  scientists 
have  missed.  But  is  there  not  a  simpler  way  of 
accounting  for  it?  For  read  and  consider  the 
human  evidence  as  regards  Bernadette — her  age, 
her  simplicity,  her  appearance  of  ecstasy.  She  said 
that  she  saw  this  Lady  eighteen  times;  on  one  of 
these  occasions,  in  the  presence  of  bystanders.  She 
was  bidden,  she  said,  to  go  to  the  water.  She 
turned  to  go  down  to  the  Gave,  but  was  recalled 
and  bidden  to  dig  in  the  earth  of  the  Grotto.  She 
did  so,  and  a  little  muddy  water  appeared  where 
no  soul  in  the  village  knew  that  there  was  water. 
Hour  by  hour  this  water  waxed  in  volume ;  to-day 


'T'PT  TT  f.RHTTO  I1V 


LOURDES 


37 


it  pours  out  in  an  endless  stream,  is  conducted 
through  the  piscines ;  and  it  is  after  washing  in 
this  water  that  bodies  are  healed  in  a  fashion  for 
which  “  science  cannot  account.”  Perhaps  it 
cannot.  Perhaps  it  is  not  intended.  But  there 
are  things  besides  science,  and  one  of  them  is  reli¬ 
gion.  Is  not  the  evidence  tolerably  strong?  Or 
is  it  a  series  of  coincidences  that  the  child  had  an 
hallucination,  devised  some  trick  with  the  water, 
and  that  this  water  happens  to  be  an  occasion  of 
healing  people  declared  incurable  by  known 
means? 

What  is  the  good  of  these  miracles?  If  so  many 
are  cured,  why  are  not  all?  Are  the  mir acutes  es¬ 
pecially  distinguished  for  piety?  Is  it  to  be  ex¬ 
pected  that  unbelievers  will  be  convinced?  Is  it 
claimed  that  the  evidence  is  irresistible?  Let  us 
go  back  to  the  Gospels.  It  used  to  be  said  by 
doubters  that  the  miraculous  element  ”  must  have 
been  added  later  by  the  piety  of  the  disciples,  be¬ 
cause  all  the  world  knew  now  that  “  miracles  ” 
did  not  happen.  That  a  priori  argument  is  surely 
silenced  by  Lourdes.  “  Miracles  ”  in  that  sense 
undoubtedly  do  happen,  if  present-day  evidence 
is  worth  anything  whatever.  What,  then,  is  the 
Christian  theory? 

It  is  this.  Our  Blessed  Lord  appears  to  have 
worked  miracles  of  such  a  nature  that  their  signi- 


38 


LOURDES 


ficance  was  not,  historically  speaking,  absolutely 
evident  to  those  who,  for  other  reasons,  did  not 
“  believe  in  Him.”  It  is  known  how  some  asked 
for  a  “  sign  from  heaven  ”  and  were  refused  it; 
how  He  Himself  said  that  even  if  one  rose  from 
the  dead,  they  would  not  believe ;  yet,  further,  how 
He  begged  them  to  believe  Him  even  for  His 
work’s  sake,  if  for  nothing  else.  We  know,  finally, 
how,  when  confronted  with  one  particular  miracle, 
His  enemies  cried  out  that  it  must  have  been  done 
by  diabolical  agency. 

Very  good,  then.  It  would  seem  that  the 
miracles  of  Our  Lord  were  of  a  nature  that  strongly 
disposed  to  belief  those  that  witnessed  them,  and 
helped  vastly  in  the  confirmation  of  the  faith  of 
those  who  already  believed;  but  that  miracles,  as 
such,  cannot  absolutely  compel  the  belief  of  those 
who  for  moral  reasons  refuse  it.  If  they  could, 
faith  would  cease  to  be  faith. 

Now,  this  seems  precisely  the  state  of  affairs 
at  Lourdes.  Even  unbelieving  scientists  are  bound 
to  admit  that  science  at  present  cannot  account  for 
the  facts,  which  is  surely  the  modern  equivalent 
for  the  Beelzebub  theory.  We  have  seen,  too,  how 
severely  scientific  persons  such  as  Dr.  Boissarie  and 
Dr.  Cox — if  they  will  permit  me  to  quote  their 
names — knowing  as  well  as  anyone  what  medicine 
and  surgery  and  hypnotism  and  suggestion  can  and 


LOURDES 


39 


cannot  do,  corroborate  this  evidence,  and  see  in 
the  facts  a  simple  illustration  of  the  truth  of  that 
Catholic  Faith  which  they  both  hold  and  practise. 

Is  not  the  parallel  a  fair  one?  What  more,  then, 
do  the  adversaries  want?  There  is  no  arguing  with 
people  who  say  that,  since  there  is  nothing  but 
Nature,  no  process  can  be  other  than  natural.  There 
is  no  sign,  even  from  heaven,  that  could  break 
down  the  intellectual  prejudice  of  such  people.  If 
they  saw  Jesus  Christ  Himself  in  glory,  they  could 
always  say  that  “  at  present  science  cannot  account 
for  the  phenomenon  of  a  luminous  body  apparently 
seated  upon  a  throne,  but  no  doubt  it  will  do  so 
in  the  course  of  time.”  If  they  saw  a  dead  and 
corrupting  man  rise  from  the  grave,  they  could 
always  argue  that  he  could  not  have  been  dead  and 
corrupting,  or  he  could  not  have  risen  from  the 
grave.  Nothing  but  the  Last  Judgment  could  con¬ 
vince  such  persons.  Even  when  the  trumpet  sounds, 
I  believe  that  some  of  them,  when  they  have  re¬ 
covered  from  their  first  astonishment,  will  make 
remarks  about  aural  phenomena. 

But  for  the  rest  of  us,  who  believe  in  God  and 
His  Son  and  the  Mother  of  God  on  quite  other 
grounds — because  our  intellect  is  satisfied,  our 
heart  kindled,  our  will  braced  by  the  belief;  and 
because  without  that  belief  all  life  falls  into  chaos, 
and  human  evidence  is  nullified,  and  all  noble  mo- 


40 


LOURDES 


tive  and  emotion  cease — for  us,  who  have  received 
the  gift  of  faith,  in  however  small  a  measure, 
Lourdes  is  enough.  Christ  and  His  Mother  are  with 
us.  Jesus  Christ  is  the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and 
for  ever.  Is  not  that,  after  all,  the  simplest  theory? 


After  dejeuner  I  set  out  again  to  find  the 
Scottish  priest,  who  hoped  to  be  able  to  take  me 
to  a  certain  window  in  the  Rosary  Church,  where 
only  a  few  were  admitted,  from  which  we  might 
view  the  procession  and  the  Blessing  of  the  Sick. 
But  we  were  disappointed;  and,  after  a  certain 
amount  of  scheming,  we  managed  to  get  a  position 
at  the  back  of  the  crowd  on  the  top  of  the  church 
steps.  I  was  able  to  climb  up  a  few  inches  above 
the  others,  and  secured  a  very  tolerable  view  of 
the  whole  scene. 

The  crowd  was  beyond  describing.  Here  about 
us  was  a  vast  concourse  of  men ;  and  as  far  as  the 
eye  could  reach  down  the  huge  oval,  and  far  away 
beyond  the  crowned  statue,  and  on  either  side  back 
to  the  Bureau  on  the  left,  and  on  the  slopes  on  the 
right,  stretched  an  inconceivable  pavement  of 
heads.  Above  us,  too,  on  every  terrace  and  step, 
back  to  the  doors  of  the  great  basilica,  we  knew 
very  well,  was  one  seething,  singing  mob.  A  great 
space  was  kept  open  on  the  level  ground  beneath 
us — I  should  say  one  hundred  by  two  hundred 
yards  in  area — and  the  inside  fringe  of  this  was 


42 


LOURDES 


composed  of  the  sick,  in  litters,  in  chairs,  standing, 
sitting,  lying  and  kneeling.  It  was  at  the  farther 
end  that  the  procession  would  enter. 

After  perhaps  half  an  hour’s  waiting,  during 
which  one  incessant  gust  of  singing  rolled  this  way 
and  that  through  the  crowd,  the  leaders  of  the 
procession  appeared  far  away — little  white  or  black 
figures,  small  as  dolls — and  the  singing  became 
general.  But  as  the  endless  files  rolled  out,  the 
singing  ceased,  and  a  moment  later  a  priest,  stand¬ 
ing  solitary  in  the  great  space  began  to  pray  aloud 
in  a  voice  like  a  silver  trumpet. 

I  have  never  heard  such  passion  in  my  life.  I 
began  to  watch  presently,  almost  mechanically,  the 
little  group  beneath  the  ombrellino ,  in  white  and 
gold,  and  the  movements  of  the  monstrance  bless¬ 
ing  the  sick ;  but  again  and  again  my  eyes 
wandered  back  to  the  little  figure  in  the  midst, 
and  I  cried  out  with  the  crowd,  sentence  after 
sentence,  following  that  passionate  voice: 

“  Seigneur,  nous  vous  adoronsT 

“  Seigneur came  the  huge  response,  “  nous 
vous  adoronsl ” 

“  Seigneur,  nous  vous  aimons /”  cried  the  priest. 

“  Seigneur ,  nous  vous  aimons  1”  answered  the 
people. 

“  Sauvez-nous,  Jesus;  nous  perissons /” 

“  Sauvez-nous,  Jesus;  nous  perissons /” 


LOURDES 


43 


“  Jesus,  Fils  de  Marie,  ayez  pitie  de  nous!” 

“  Jesus,  Fils  de  Marie,  ayez  pitie  de  nous!” 

Then  with  a  surge  rose  up  the  plainsong  melody. 

“  Farce,  Do?nine!  ”  sang  the  people.  “  Farce 
popido  tuo !  Ne  in  aeternum  irascaris  nobis.” 

Again  : 

“  Gloria  Patri  et  Filio  et  Spiritui  Sancto.” 

“  Si  cut  erat  in  principio  et  nunc  et  setnper,  et 
in  scecula  sceculormn.  Amen.” 

Then  again  the  single  voice  and  the  multitu¬ 
dinous  answer: 

“  V otis  etes  la  Resurrection  et  la  Vie!” 

And  then  an  adjuration  to  her  whom  He  gave 
to  be  our  Mother. 

“  Mere  du  Sauveur,  priez  pour  nous!” 

“  Saint  des  Infirmes,  priez  potir  nous!” 

Then  once  more  the  singing;  then  the  cry,  more 
touching  than  all: 

“  Seigneur,  guerissez  nos  malades !” 

“  Seigneur,  guerissez  nos  malades!” 

Then  the  kindling  shout  that  brought  the  blood 
to  ten  thousand  faces : 

“  Hosanna!  Hosanna  au  Fils  de  David!”  (I 
shook  to  hear  it). 

“  Hosanna !”  cried  the  priest,  rising  from  his 
knees  with  arms  flung  wide. 

“  Hosanna!”  roared  the  people,  swift  as  an  echo. 

“  Hosanna!  Hosanna!  ”  crashed  out  again  and 
again,  like  great  artillery. 


44 


LOURDES 


Yet  there  was  no  movement  among  those  piteous 
prostrate  lines.  The  Bishop,  the  ombrellino  over 
him,  passed  on  slowly  round  the  circle ;  and  the 
people  cried  to  Him  whom  he  bore,  as  they  cried 
two  thousand  years  ago  on  the  road  to  the  city  of 
David.  Surely  He  will  be  pitiful  upon  this  day — 
the  Jubilee  Year  of  His  Mother’s  graciousness,  the 
octave  of  her  assumption  to  sit  with  Him  on  His 
throne ! 

“  Mere  du  Sauveur,  priez  pour  nous!  ” 

“  Jesus,  vous  etes  inon  Seigneur  et  mon  Dieu!  ” 

Yet  there  was  no  movement. 

If  ever  “  suggestion  ”  could  work  a  miracle, 
it  must  work  it  now.  “  We  expect  the  miracles 
during  the  procession  to-morrow  and  on  Sunday,” 
a  priest  had  said  to  me  on  the  previous  day.  And 
there  I  stood,  one  of  a  hundred  thousand,  confident 
in  expectation,  thrilled  by  that  voice,  nothing 
doubting  or  fearing;  there  were  the  sick  beneath 
me,  answering  weakly  and  wildly  to  the  crying  of 
the  priest;  and  yet  there  was  no  movement,  no 
sudden  leap  of  a  sick  man  from  his  bed  as  Jesus 
went  by,  no  vibrating  scream  of  joy — “  Je  suis 
gueril  ]e  suis  gueril  ” — no  tumultuous  rush  to  the 
place,  and  the  roar  of  the  Magnificat,  as  we  had 
been  led  to  expect. 

The  end  was  coming  near  now.  The  monstrance 
had  reached  the  image  once  again,  and  was  ad- 


LOURDES 


45 


vancing  down  the  middle.  The  voice  of  the  priest 
grew  more  passionate  still,  as  he  tossed  his  arms 
and  cried  for  mercy: 

“  Jesus,  ayez  pitie  de  nous! — ayez  pitie  de  nous  T 

And  the  people,  frantic  with  ardour  and  desire, 
answered  him  in  a  voice  of  thunder: 

“  Ayez  pitie  de  nous !— ayez  pitie  de  nous!  ” 

And  now  up  the  steps  came  the  grave  group 
to  where  Jesus  would  at  least  bless  His  own,  though 
He  would  not  heal  them;  and  the  priest  in  £he 
midst,  with  one  last  cry,  gave  glory  to  Him  who 
must  be  served  through  whatever  misery: 

“  Hosanna!  Hosanna  au  Fils  de  David!  ” 

Surely  that  must  touch  the  Sacred  Heart !  Will 
not  His  Mother  say  one  word? 

“  Hosanna!  Hosanna  au  Fils  de  David !  ” 

“Hosanna !  ”  cried  the  priest. 

“  Hosanna!  ”  cried  the  people. 

“  Hosanna!  Hosanna!  Hosanna!  .  . 

One  articulate  roar  of  disappointed  praise,  and 
then — Tanturn  ergo  Sacr amentum!  rose  in  its 
solemnity. 

When  Benediction  was  over,  I  went  back  to  the 
Bureau;  but  there  was  little  to  be  seen  there.  No, 
there  were  no  miracles  to-day,  I  was  told — or 
hardly  one.  Perhaps  one  in  the  morning.  It  was 
not  known. 

Several  Bishops  were  there  again,  listening  to 


46 


LOURDES 


the  talk  of  the  doctors,  and  the  description  of 
certain  cases  on  previous  days.  Pere  Salvator,  the 
Capuchin,  was  there  again ;  as  also  the  tall  bearded 
Assumptionist  Father  of  whom  I  have  spoken.  But 
there  was  not  a  great  deal  of  interest  or  excitement. 
I  had  the  pleasure  of  talking  a  while  with  the 
Bishop  of  Tarbes,  who  introduced  me  again  to  the 
Capuchin,  and  retold  his  story. 

But  I  was  a  little  unhappy.  The  miracle  was 
that  I  was  not  more  so.  I  had  expected  so  much: 
I  had  seen  nothing. 

I  talked  to  Dr.  Cox  also  before  leaving. 

“  No,”  he  told  me,  “  there  is  hardly  one  miracle 
to-day.  We  are  doubtful,  too,  about  that  leg  that 
was  seven  centimetres  too  short.” 

“  And  is  it  true  that  Mademoiselle  Bardou  is  not 
cured?”  (A  doctor  had  been  giving  us  certain  evi¬ 
dence  a  few  minutes  before). 

“  I  am  afraid  so.  It  was  probably  a  case  of 
intense  subjective  excitement.  But  it  may  be  an 
amelioration.  We  do  not  know  yet.  The  real  work 
of  investigating  comes  afterwards.” 

How  arbitrary  it  all  seemed,  I  thought,  as  I 
walked  home  to  dinner.  That  morning,  on  my 
way  from  the  Bureau,  I  had  seen  a  great  company 
of  white  banners  moving  together ;  and,  on  inquiry, 
had  found  that  these  were  the  ?niracules  chiefly, 
of  previous  years — about  three  hundred  and  fifty 


THE  GROTTO  IN  [9  I  4 


\ 


LOURDES 


47 


in  number.1  They  formed  a  considerably  large 
procession.  I  had  looked  at  their  faces:  there 
were  many  more  women  than  men  (as  there  were 
upon  Calvary).  But  as  I  watched  them  I  could  not 
conceive  upon  what  principle  the  Supernatural  had 
suddenly  descended  on  this  and  not  on  that.  “  Two 
men  in  one  bed  .  .  .  Two  women  grinding  at  the 
mill.  .  .  One  is  taken  and  the  other  left.”  Here 
were  persons  of  all  ages — from  six  to  eighty,  I 
should  guess — of  all  characters,  ranks,  experiences ; 
of  both  sexes.  Some  were  religious,  some  grocers, 
some  of  the  nobility,  a  retired  soldier  or  two,  and 
so  on.  They  were  not  distinguished  for  holiness, 
it  seemed.  I  had  heard  heartbreaking  little 
stories  of  the  ten  lepers  over  again — one  grateful, 
nine  selfish.  One  or  two  of  the  girls,  I  heard,  had 
had  their  heads  turned  by  flattery  and  congratula¬ 
tion ;  they  had  begun  to  give  themselves  airs. 

And,  now  again,  here  was  this  day,  this  almost 
obvious  occasion.  It  was  the  Jubilee  Year;  every¬ 
thing  was  about  on  a  double  scale.  And  nothing 
had  happened!  Further,  five  of  the  sick  had 
actually  died  at  Lourdes  during  their  first  night 
there.  To  come  so  far  and  to  die! 

On  what  principle,  then,  did  God  act?  Then  I 
suddenly  understood,  not  God’s  principles,  but  my 
own;  and  I  went  home  both  ashamed  and 
comforted. 

1  The  official  numbers  of  those  at  the  afternoon  pro¬ 
cession  were  341. 


VI. 


I  SAID  a  midnight  Mass  that  night  in  the  same 
chapel  of  the  Rosary  Church  as  on  the  previous 
morning.  Again  the  crush  was  terrific.  On  the 
steps  of  the  church  I  saw  a  friar  hearing  a  confes¬ 
sion;  and  on  entering  I  found  High  Mass  pro¬ 
ceeding  in  the  body  of  the  church  itself,  with  a 
congregation  so  large  and  so  worn-out  that  many 
were  sleeping  in  constrained  attitudes  among  the 
seats.  In  fact,  I  was  informed,  since  the  sleeping 
accommodation  of  Lourdes  could  not  possibly  pro¬ 
vide  for  so  large  a  pilgrimage,  there  were  many 
hundreds,  at  least,  who  slept  where  they  could — 
on  the  steps  of  churches,  under  trees  and  rocks, 
and  by  the  banks  of  the  river. 

I  was  served  at  my  Mass  by  a  Scottish  priest, 
immediately  afterwards  I  served  his  at  the  same 
altar.  While  vesting,  I  noticed  a  priest  at  the 
high  altar  of  this  little  chapel  reading  out  acts  of 
prayer,  to  which  the  congregation  responded;  and 
learned  that  two  persons  who  had  been  received 
into  the  Church  on  that  day  were  to  make  their 
First  Communion.  As  midnight  struck,  simul¬ 
taneously  from  the  seven  altars  came  seven  voices : 


LOURDES 


49 


“  In  7io  mine  Pair  is,  et  Filii,  et  Spiritns  Sancti. 
AmenF 

Once  more,  on  returning  home  and  going  to  bed 
a  little  after  one  o’clock  in  the  morning,  the  last 
sound  that  I  heard  was  of  the  “  Gloria  Patri  ” 
being  sung  by  other  pilgrims  also  returning  to  their 
lodging. 

After  coffee,  a  few  hours  later,  I  went  down 
again  to  the  square.  It  was  Sunday,  and  a  Ponti¬ 
fical  High  Mass  was  being  sung  on  the  steps  of  the 
Rosary  Church.  As  usual,  the  crowd  filled  the 
square,  and  I  could  hardly  penetrate  for  a  while 
beyond  the  fringe ;  but  it  was  a  new  experience 
to  hear  that  vast  congregation  in  the  open  air  re¬ 
sponding  with  one  giant  voice  to  the  plain-song 
of  the  Mass.  It  was  astonishing  what  expression 
showed  itself  in  the  singing.  The  Sanctus  was 
one  of  the  most  impressive  peals  of  worship  and 
adoration  that  I  have  ever  heard.  At  the  close 
of  the  Mass,  all  the  bishops  present  near  the  altar 
— I  counted  six  or  seven — turned  and  gave  the 
blessing  simultaneously.  On  the  two  great  curves 
that  led  up  to  the  basilica  were  grouped  the  white 
banners  of  the  miracules. 

Soon  after  arriving  at  the  Bureau  a  very  strange 
and  quiet  little  incident  happened.  A  woman  with 
a  yellowish  face,  to  which  the  colour  was  slowly 
returning,  came  in  and  sat  down  to  give  her  evi- 

E 


LOURDES 


5<=> 

dence.  She  declared  to  us  that  during  the  pro¬ 
cession  yesterday  she  had  been  cured  of  a  tumour 
on  the  liver.  She  had  suddenly  experienced  an 
overwhelming  sense  of  relief,  and  had  walked 
home  completely  restored  to  health.  On  being 
asked  why  she  did  not  present  herself  at  the 
Bureau,  she  answered  that  she  did  not  think  of  it:1 
she  had  just  gone  home.  I  have  not  yet  heard 
whether  this  was  a  true  cure  or  not ;  all  I  can  say 
at  present  is  I  was  as  much  impressed  by  her  simple 
and  natural  bearing,  her  entire  self-possession,  and 
the  absence  of  excitement,  as  by  anything  I  saw 
at  Lourdes.  I  cannot  conceive  such  a  woman 
suffering  from  an  illusion. 

A  few  minutes  later  Dr.  Cox  called  to  me,  and 
writing  on  a  card,  handed  it  to  me,  telling  me  it 
would  admit  me  to  the  piscines  for  a  bath.  I  had 
asked  for  this  previously;  but  had  been  told  it 
was  not  certain,  owing  to  the  crush  of  patients, 
whether  it  could  be  granted.  I  set  out  immediately 
to  the  piscines . 

There  are,  as  I  have  said,  three  compartments 
in  the  building  called  the  piscines.  That  on  the 
left  is  for  women ;  in  the  middle,  for  children  and 
for  those  who  do  not  undergo  complete  immersion ; 
on  the  right,  for  men.  It  was  into  this  last,  then, 
that  I  went,  when  I  had  forced  my  way  through 
the  crowd,  and  passed  the  open  court  where  the 


LOURDES 


Sl 


priests  prayed.  It  was  a  little  paved  place  like 
a  chapel,  with  a  curtain  hung  immediately  before 
the  door.  When  I  had  passed  this,  I  saw  at  the 
farther  end,  three  or  four  yards  away,  was  a 
deepish  trough,  wide  and  long  enough  to  hold  one 
person.  Steps  went  down  on  either  side  of  it,  for 
the  attendants.  Immediately  above  the  bath,  on 
the  wall,  was  a  statue  of  Our  Lady;  and  beneath 
it  a  placard  of  prayers,  large  enough  to  be  read  at 
a  little  distance. 

There  were  about  half  a  dozen  people  in  the 
place — two  or  three  priests  and  three  or  four 
patients.  One  of  the  priests,  I  was  relieved  to  see, 
was  the  Scotsman  whose  Mass  I  had  served  the 
previous  midnight.  He  was  in  his  soutane,  with 
his  sleeves  rolled  up  to  the  elbow.  He  gave  me 
my  directions,  and  while  I  made  ready  I  watched 
the  patients.  There  was  one  lame  man,  just  beside 
me,  beginning  to  dress ;  two  tiny  boys,  and  a  young 
man  who  touched  me  more  than  I  can  say.  He 
was  standing  by  the  head  of  the  bath,  holding  a 
basin  in  one  hand  and  a  little  image  of  our  Lady 
in  the  other,  and  was  splashing  water  ingeniously 
with  his  fingers  into  his  eyes;  these  were  horribly 
inflamed,  and  I  could  see  that  he  was  blind.  I 
cannot  describe  the  passion  with  which  he  did  this, 
seeming  to  stare  all  the  while  towards  the  image 
he  held,  and  whispering  out  prayers  in  a  quick 


52 


LOURDES 


undertone — hoping,  no  doubt,  that  his  first  sight 
would  be  the  image  of  his  Mother.  Then  I  looked 
at  the  boys.  One  of  them  had  horribly  prolonged 
and  thin  legs ;  I  could  not  see  what  was  wrong 
with  the  other,  except  that  he  looked  ill  and  worn 
out.  Close  beside  me,  on  the  wet,  muddy  paving, 
lay  an  indescribable  bandage  that  had  been  un¬ 
rolled  from  the  lame  man’s  leg. 

When  my  turn  came,  I  went  wrapped  in  a  soak¬ 
ing  apron,  down  a  step  or  so  into  the  water;  and 
then,  with  a  priest  holding  either  hand,  lay  down 
at  full  length  so  that  my  head  only  emerged.  That 
water  had  better  not  be  described.  It  is  enough 
to  say  that  people  suffering  from  most  of  the 
diseases  known  to  man  had  bathed  in  it  without 
ceasing  for  at  least  five  or  six  hours.  Yet  I  can 
say,  with  entire  sincerity,  that  I  did  not  have  even 
the  faintest  physical  repulsion,  though  commonly 
I  hate  dirt  at  least  as  much  as  sin.  It  is  said,  too, 
that  never  in  the  history  of  Lourdes  has  there  been 
one  case  of  disease  traceable  to  infection  from  the 
baths.  The  water  was  cold,  but  not  unpleasantly. 
I  lay  there,  I  suppose,  about  one  minute,  while 
the  two  priests  and  myself  repeated  off  the  placard 
the  prayers  inscribed  there.  These  were,  for  the 
most  part,  petitions  to  Mary  to  pray.  “  O  Marie,” 
they  ended,  “  conque  sans  peche ,  priez  pour  nous 
qui  avons  recours  a  vousl  ” 


LOURDES 


53 


As  I  dressed  again  after  the  bath,  I  had  one 
more  sight  of  the  young  man.  He  was  being  led 
out  by  a  kindly  attendant,  but  his  face  was  all 
distorted  with  crying,  and  from  his  blind  eyes  ran 
down  a  stream  of  terrible  tears.  It  is  unnecessary 
to  say  that  I  said  a  “Hail  Mary  ”  for  his  soul 
at  least. 

As  soon  as  I  was  ready,  I  went  out  and  sat  down 
for  a  while  among  the  recently  bathed,  and  began 
to  remind  myself  why  1  had  bathed.  Certainly 
I  was  not  suffering  from  anything  except  a  negli¬ 
gible  ailment  or  two.  Neither  did  I  do  it  out  of 
curiosity,  because  I  could  have  seen  without  diffi¬ 
culty  all  the  details  without  descending  into  that 
appalling  trough.  I  suppose  it  was  just  an  act 
of  devotion.  Here  was  water  with  a  history  be¬ 
hind  it;  water  that  was  as  undoubtedly  used  by 
Almighty  God  for  giving  benefits  to  man  as  was 
the  clay  laid  upon  blind  eyes  long  ago  near  Siloe, 
or  the  water  of  Bethesda  itself.  And  it  is  a  natural 
instinct  to  come  as  close  as  possible  to  things  used 
by  the  heavenly  powers.  I  was  extraordinarily  glad 
I  had  bathed,  and  I  have  been  equally  glad  ever 
since.  I  am  afraid  it  is  of  no  use  as  evidence  to 
say  that  until  I  came  to  Lourdes  I  was  tired  out, 
body  and  mind;  and  that  since  my  return  I  have 
been  unusually  robust.  Yet  that  is  a  fact,  and 
I  leave  it  there. 

As  I  sat  there  a  procession  went  past  to  the 


54 


LOURDES 


Grotto,  and  I  walked  to  the  railings  to  look  at  it. 
I  do  not  know  at  all  what  it  was  all  about,  but  it 
was  as  impressive  as  all  things  are  in  Lourdes. 
The  miracules  came  first  with  their  banners — file 
after  file  of  them — then  a  number  of  prelates,  then 
brancardiers  with  their  shoulder-harness,  then 
nuns,  then  more  brancardiers .  I  think  perhaps 
they  may  have  been  taking  a  recent  miracule  to 
give  thanks;  for  when  I  arrived  presently  at  the 
Bureau  again,  I  heard  that,  after  all,  several 
appeared  to  have  been  cured  at  the  procession  on 
the  previous  day. 

I  was  sitting  in  the  hall  of  the  hotel  a  few 
minutes  later  when  I  heard  the  roar  of  the 
Magnificat  from  the  street,  and  ran  out  to  see  what 
was  forward.  As  I  came  to  the  door,  the  heart 
of  the  procession  went  by.  A  group  of  brancar¬ 
diers  formed  an  irregular  square,  holding  cords 
to  keep  back  the  crowd;  and  in  the  middle  walked 
a  group  of  three,  followed  by  an  empty  litter.  The 
three  were  a  white-haired  man  on  this  side,  a  stal¬ 
wart  brancardier  on  the  other,  and  between  them 
a  girl  with  a  radiant  face,  singing  with  all  her 
heart.  She  had  been  carried  down  from  her 
lodging  that  morning  to  the  piscines ;  she  was  re¬ 
turning  on  her  own  feet,  by  the  power  of  Him 
who  said  to  the  lame  man,  “  Take  up  thy  bed  and 
go  into  thy  house.”  I  followed  them  a  little  way, 
then  I  went  back  to  the  hotel. 


VII. 


IN  the  afternoon  we  went  down  to  meet  a  priest 
who  had  promised  a  place  to  one  of  our  party  in 
the  window  of  which  I  have  spoken  before.  But 
the  crowd  was  so  great  that  we  could  not  find  him, 
so  presently  we  dispersed  as  best  we  could.  Two 
other  priests  and  myself  went  completely  round 
the  outside  of  the  churches,  in  order,  if  possible, 
to  join  in  the  procession,  since  to  cross  the  square 
was  a  simple  impossibility.  In  the  terrible  crush 
near  the  Bureau,  I  became  separated  from  the 
others,  and  fought  my  way  back,  and  into  the 
Bureau,  as  the  best  place  open  to  me  now  for  seeing 
the  Blessing  of  the  Sick. 

It  was  now  at  last  that  I  had  my  supreme  wish. 
Within  a  minute  or  two  of  my  coming  to  look 
through  the  window,  the  Blessed  Sacrament  en¬ 
tered  the  reserved  space  among  the  countless 
litters.  The  crowd  between  me  and  the  open  space 
was  simply  one  pack  of  heads ;  but  I  could  observe 
the  movements  of  what  was  going  forward  by  the 
white  top  of  the  ombrellino  as  it  passed  slowly 
down  the  farther  side  of  the  square. 

The  crowd  was  very  still,  answering  as  before 


56 


LOURDES 


the  passionate  voice  in  the  midst ;  but  watching, 
watching,  as  I  watched.  Beside  me  sat  Dr.  Cox, 
and  our  Rosaries  were  in  our  hands.  The  white 
spot  moved  on  and  on,  and  all  else  was  motionless. 
I  knew  that  beyond  it  lay  the  sick.  “  Lord,  if  it 
be  possible — if  it  be  possible!  Nevertheless,  not 
my  will  but  Thine  be  done.”  It  had  reached  now 
the  end  of  the  first  line. 

“  Seigneur ,  guerissez  nos  malades!  ”  cried  the 
priest. 

“  Seigneur ,  guerissez  nos  malades!  ”  answered 
the  people. 

“  Vous  etes  mon  Seigneur  et  mon  Dieu!  ” 

And  then  on  a  sudden  it  came. 

Overhead  lay  the  quiet  summer  air,  charged 
with  the  Supernatural  as  a  cloud  with  thunder — 
electric,  vibrating  with  power.  Here  beneath  lay 
souls  thirsting  for  its  touch  of  fire — patient,  desir¬ 
ous,  infinitely  pathetic ;  and  in  the  midst  that 
Power,  incarnate  for  us  men  and  our  salvation. 
Then  it  descended,  swift  and  mighty. 

I  saw  a  sudden  swirl  in  the  crowd  of  heads  be¬ 
neath  the  church  steps,  and  then  a  great  shaking 
ran  through  the  crowd;  but  there  for  a  few 
instants  it  boiled  like  a  pot.  A  sudden  cry  had 
broken  out,  and  it  ran  through  the  whole  space; 
waxing  in  volume  as  it  ran,  till  the  heads  beneath 
my  window  shook  with  it  also;  hands  clapped, 
voices  shouted:  “  Un  miracle!  Un  miracle /” 


LOURDES 


57 

I  was  on  my  feet,  staring  and  crying  out.  Then 
quietly  the  shaking  ceased,  and  the  shouting  died 
to  a  murmur;  and  the  onibrellino  moved  on;  and 
again  the  voice  of  the  priest  thrilled  thin  and  clear, 
with  a  touch  of  triumphant  thankfulness:  “  Vous 
etes  la  Resurrection  et  la  Vie  l  ”  And  again,  with 
entreaty  once  more — since  there  still  were  two 
thousand  sick  untouched  by  that  Power,  and  time 
pressed — that  infinitely  moving  plea :  “  Seigneur, 
celui  qui  vous  aime  est  7?ialadel  And:  “  Seigneur , 
faites  que  je  marchel  Seigneur,  faites  que 
fentendel  ” 

And  then  again  the  finger  of  God  flashed  down, 
and  again  and  again;  and  each  time  a  sick  and 
broken  body  sprang  from  its  bed  of  pain  and  stood 
upright;  and  the  crowd  smiled  and  roared  and 
sobbed.  Five  times  I  saw  that  swirl  and  rush; 
the  last  when  the  Te  Deum  pealed  out  from  the 
church  steps  as  Jesus  in  His  Sacrament  came  home 
again.  And  there  were  two  that  I  did  not  see. 
There  were  seven  in  all  that  afternoon. 

Now,  is  it  of  any  use  to  comment  on  all  this? 
I  am  not  sure;  and  yet,  for  my  own  satisfaction 
if  for  no  one  else’s,  I  wish  to  set  down  some  of 
the  thoughts  that  came  to  me  both  then  and  after 
I  had  sat  at  the  window  and  seen  God’s  loving¬ 
kindness  with  my  own  eyes. 

The  first  overwhelming  impression  that  remained 


58 


LOURDES 


with  me  is  this — that  I  had  been  present,  in  my 
own  body,  in  the  twentieth  century,  and  seen  Jesus 
pass  along  by  the  sick  folk,  as  He  passed  two 
thousand  years  before.  That,  in  a  word,  is  the 
supreme  fact  of  Lourdes.  More  than  once  as  I 
sat  there  that  afternoon  I  contrasted  the  manner 
in  which  I  was  spending  it  with  that  in  which  the 
average  believing  Christian  spends  Sunday  after¬ 
noon.  As  a  child,  I  used  to  walk  with  my  father, 
and  he  used  to  read  and  talk  on  religious  subjects; 
on  our  return  we  used  to  have  a  short  Bible-class 
in  his  study.  As  an  Anglican  clergyman,  I  used  to 
teach  in  Sunday  schools  or  preach  to  children.  As 
a  Catholic  priest,  I  used  occasionally  to  attend  at 
catechism.  At  all  these  times  the  miraculous  seemed 
singularly  far  away;  we  looked  at  it  across  twenty 
centuries ;  it  was  something  from  which  lessons 
might  be  drawn,  upon  which  the  imagination  might 
feed,  but  it  was  a  state  of  affairs  as  remote  as  the 
life  of  prehistoric  man;  one  assented  to  it,  and 
that  was  all.  And  here  at  Lourdes  it  was  a  present, 
vivid  event.  I  sat  at  an  ordinary  glass  window,  in 
a  soutane  made  by  an  English  tailor,  with  another 
Englishman  beside  me,  and  saw  the  miraculous 
happen.  Time  and  space  disappeared;  the  cen¬ 
turies  shrank  and  vanished;  and  behold  we  saw 
that  which  “  prophets  and  kings  have  desired  to 
see  and  have  not  seen!” 


LOURDES 


59 


Of  course  “  scientific  ”  arguments,  of  the  sort 
which  I  have  related,  can  be  brought  forward  in 
an  attempt  to  explain  Lourdes;  but  they  are  the 
same  arguments  that  can  be,  and  are,  brought 
forward  against  the  miracles  of  Jesus  Christ  Him¬ 
self.  I  say  nothing  to  those  here ;  I  leave  that 
to  scientists  such  as  Dr.  Boissarie ;  but  what  I 
cannot  understand  is  that  professing  Christians  are 
able  to  bring  a  priori  arguments  against  the  fact 
that  Our  Lord  is  the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and 
for  ever — the  same  in  Galilee  and  in  France. 
“  These  signs  shall  follow  them  that  believe,”  He 
said  Himself ;  and  the  history  of  the  Catholic 
Church  is  an  exact  fulfilment  of  the  words.  It 
was  so,  St.  Augustine  tells  us,  at  the  tombs  of  the 
martyrs ;  five  hundred  miracles  were  reported  at 
Canterbury  within  a  few  years  of  St.  Thomas’  mar¬ 
tyrdom.  And  now  here  is  Lourdes,  as  it  has  been 
for  fifty  years,  in  this  little  corner  of  poor  France ! 

I  have  been  asked  since  my  return:  “  Why  can¬ 
not  miracles  be  done  in  England?”  My  answer 
is,  firstly,  that  they  are  done  in  England,  in  Liver¬ 
pool,  and  at  Holywell,  for  example;  secondly,  I 
answer  by  another  question  as  to  why  Jesus  Christ 
was  not  born  in  Rome ;  and  if  He  had  been  born 
in  Rome,  why  not  in  Nineveh  and  Jerusalem? 
Thirdly,  I  answer  that  perhaps  more  would  be  done 
in  England,  if  there  were  more  faith  there.  It  is 


6o 


LOURDES 


surely  a  little  unreasonable  to  ask  that,  in  a  country 
which  three  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  deliber¬ 
ately  repudiated  Christ’s  Revelation  of  Himself, 
banished  the  Blessed  Sacrament  and  tore  down 
Mary’s  shrines,  Christ  and  His  Mother  should  co¬ 
operate  supernaturally  in  marvels  that  are  rather 
the  rewards  of  the  faithful.  “  It  is  not  meet  to 
take  the  children’s  bread  and  to  cast  it  to  the 
dogs  ” — these  are  the  words  of  our  Lord  Himself. 
If  London  is  not  yet  tolerant  enough  to  allow  an 
Eucharistic  Procession  in  her  streets,  she  is  scarcely 
justified  in  demanding  that  our  Eucharistic  Lord 
should  manifest  His  power.  “  He  could  do  no 
mighty  work  there,”  says  the  Evangelist,  of 
Capharnaum,  “  because  of  their  unbelief.” 

This,  then,  is  the  supreme  fact  of  Lourdes :  that 
Jesus  Christ  in  His  Sacrament  passes  along  that 
open  square,  with  the  sick  laid  in  beds  on  either 
side;  and  that  at  His  word  the  lame  walk  and 
lepers  are  cleansed  and  deaf  hear — that  they  are 
seen  leaping  and  dancing  for  joy. 

Even  now,  writing  within  ten  days  of  my  return, 
all  seems  like  a  dream ;  and  yet  I  know  that  I  saw 
it.  For  over  thirty  years  I  had  been  accustomed 
to  repeat  the  silly  formula  that  “  the  age  of 
miracles  is  past”;  that  they  were  necessary  for 
the  establishment  of  Christianity,  but  that  they  are 
no  longer  necessary  now,  except  on  extremely  rare 


LOURDES 


61 


occasions  perhaps ;  and  in  my  heart  I  knew  my 
foolishness.  Why,  for  those  thirty  years  Lourdes 
had  been  in  existence !  And  if  I  spoke  of  it  at  all, 
I  spoke  only  of  hysteria  and  auto-suggestion  and 
French  imaginativeness,  and  the  rest  of  the  non¬ 
sense.  It  is  impossible  for  a  Christian  who  has 
been  at  Lourdes  to  speak  like  that  again. 

And  as  for  the  unreality,  that  does  not  trouble 
me.  I  have  no  doubt  that  those  who  saw  the 
bandages  torn  from  the  leper’s  limbs  and  the  sound 
flesh  shown  beneath,  or  the  once  blind  man,  his 
eyes  now  dripping  with  water  of  Siloe,  looking  on 
Him  who  had  made  him  whole,  or  heard  the  mar¬ 
vellous  talk  of  “  men  like  trees  walking,”  and  the 
rest — I  have  no  doubt  that  ten  days  later  they  sat 
themselves  with  unseeing  eyes,  and  wondered 
whether  it  was  indeed  they  who  had  witnessed 
those  things.  Human  nature,  like  a  Leyden  jar, 
cannot  hold  beyond  a  fixed  quantity;  and  this 
human  nature,  with  experience,  instincts,  educa¬ 
tion,  common  talk,  public  opinion,  and  all  the  rest 
of  it,  echoing  round  it;  the  assumption  that 
miracles  do  not  happen ;  that  laws  are  laws;  in 
other  words,  that  Deism  is  the  best  that  can  be 
hoped — well,  it  is  little  wonder  that  the  visible  con¬ 
tradiction  of  all  this  conventionalism  finds  but 
little  room  in  the  soul. 

Then  there  is  another  point  that  I  should  like  to 


62 


LOURDES 


make  in  the  presence  of  “  Evangelical  ”  Christians 
who  shake  their  heads  over  Mary’s  part  in  the 
matter.  It  is  this — that  for  every  miracle  that  takes 
place  in  the  piscines,  I  should  guess  that  a  dozen 
take  place  while  That  which  we  believe  to  be  Jesus 
Christ  goes  by.  Catholics,  naturally,  need  no  such 
reassurance ;  they  know  well  enough  from  interior 
experience  that  when  Mary  comes  forward  Jesus 
does  not  retire  l  But  for  those  who  think  as  some 
Christians  do,  it  is  necessary  to  point  out  the  facts. 
And  again.  I  have  before  me  as  I  write  the  little 
card  of  ejaculations  that  are  used  in  the  procession. 
There  are  twenty-four  in  all.  Of  these,  twenty-one 
are  addressed  to  Jesus  Christ ;  in  two  more  we 
ask  the  “  Mother  of  the  Saviour  ”  and  the  “  Health 
of  the  Sick  ”  to  pray  for  us ;  in  the  last  we  ask 
her  to  “  show  herself  a  Mother.  If  people  will 
talk  of  “  proportion  ”  in  a  matter  in  which  there 
is  no  such  thing — since  there  can  be  no  comparison, 
without  grave  irreverence,  between  the  Creator  and 
a  creature — I  would  ask,  Is  there  “  disproportion  ” 
here? 

In  fact,  Lourdes,  as  a  whole,  is  an  excellent 
little  compendium  of  Catholic  theology  and 
Gospel- truth.  There  was  once  a  marriage  feast, 
and  the  Mother  of  Jesus  was  there  with  her  Son. 
There  was  no  wine.  She  told  her  Son  what  He 
already  knew ;  He  seemed  to  deprecate  her  words ; 
but  He  obeyed  them,  and  the  water  became  wine. 


LOURDES 


63 


There  is  at  Lourdes  not  a  marriage  feast,  but 
something  very  like  a  deathbed.  The  Mother  of 
Jesus  is  there  with  her  Son.  It  is  she  again  who 
takes  the  initiative.  “  Here  is  water,”  she  seems 
to  say;  “  dig,  Bernadette,  and  you  will  find  it.” 
But  it  is  no  more  than  water.  Then  she  turns  to 
her  Son.  “  They  have  water,”  she  says,  “  but  no 
more.”  And  then  He  comes  forth  in  His  power. 
“  Draw  out  now  from  all  the  sick  beds  of  the  world 
and  bear  them  to  the  Governor  of  the  Feast.  Use 
the  commonest  things  in  the  world — physical  pain 
and  common  water.  Bring  them  together,  and 
wait  until  I  pass  by.”  Then  Jesus  of  Nazareth 
passes  by ;  and  the  sick  leap  from  their  beds,  and 
the  blind  see,  and  the  lepers  are  cleansed,  and 
devils  are  cast  out. 

Oh,  yes !  the  parallel  halts ;  but  is  it  not  near 
enough? 

Seigneur ,  guerissez  nos  ?naladesl 

Salut  des  Inflrmes ,  priez  pour  nous l 


VIII. 


The  moment  Benediction  was  given,  the  room 
began  rapidly  to  fill ;  but  I  still  watched  the  sing¬ 
ing  crowd  outside.  Among  others  I  noticed  a 
woman,  placid  and  happy — such  a  woman  as  you 
would  see  a  hundred  times  a  day  in  London  streets, 
with  jet  ornaments  in  her  hat,  middle-aged,  almost 
startlingly  commonplace.  No,  nothing  dramatic 
happened  to  her;  that  was  the  point.  But  there 
she  was,  taking  it  all  for  granted,  joining  in  the 
'Magnificat  with  a  roving  eye,  pleased  as  she  would 
have  been  pleased  at  a  circus ;  interrupting  herself 
to  talk  to  her  neighbour ;  and  all  the  while  gripping 
in  a  capable  hand,  on  which  shone  a  wedding  ring, 
the  bars  of  the  Bureau  window  behind  which  I 
sat,  that  she  might  make  the  best  of  both  worlds 
—Grace  without  and  Science  within.  She,  as  I, 
had  seen  what  God  had  done ;  now  she  proposed 
to  see  what  the  doctors  would  make  of  it  all ;  and 
have,  besides,  a  good  view  of  the  miracules  when 
they  appeared. 

I  suppose  it  was  her  astonishing  ordinariness 
that  impressed  me.  It  was  surprising  to  see  such 
a  one  during  such  a  scene;  it  was  as  incongruous 


LOURDES 


67 


coming  out  of  the  bath,  he  had  been  aware  of  a 
curious  sensation  of  warmth  in  the  stomach;  he 
had  then  found  that,  for  the  first  time  for  many 
months,  he  wished  for  food;  he  was  given  it,  and 
he  enjoyed  it.  He  moved  his  fingers  in  a  normal 
manner,  raised  his  arm  and  let  it  fall. 

Then  for  the  first  time  in  the  Bureau  I  heard  a 
sharp  controversy.  One  doctor  suddenly  broke  out, 
saying  that  there  was  no  actual  proof  that  it  was 
not  all  “  hysterical  simulation.”  Another  answered 
him;  an  appeal  was  made  to  the  certificate.  Then 
the  first  doctor  delivered  a  little  speech,  in  excel¬ 
lent  taste,  though  casting  doubt  upon  the  case; 
and  the  matter  was  then  set  aside  for  investiga¬ 
tion  with  the  rest.  I  heard  Dr.  Boissarie  after¬ 
wards  thank  him  for  his  admirable  little  discourse. 

Finally,  though  it  was  getting  late,  Honorie 
Gras,  aged  thirty-five,  came  in  to  give  her  evi¬ 
dence.  She  had  suffered  till  to-day  from  “  puru¬ 
lent  arthritis  ”  and  “  white  swellings  ”  on  the  left 
knee.  To-day  she  walked.  Her  certificate  con¬ 
firmed  her,  and  she  was  dismissed. 

It  was  all  very  matter-of-fact.  There  is  no 
reason  to  fear  that  Lourdes  is  all  hymn-singing 
and  adjurations.  It  is  a  pleasure  to  think  that, 
on  the  right  of  the  Rosary  Church,  and  within 
a  hundred  yards  of  the  Grotto,  there  is  this  little 
room,  filled  with  keen-eyed  doctors  from  every 


68 


LOURDES 


school  of  faith  and  science,  who  have  only  to 
present  their  cards  and  be  made  free  of  all  that 
Lourdes  has  to  show.  They  are  keen-brained  as 
well  as  keen-eyed.  I  heard  one  of  them  say 
quietly  that  if  the  Mother  of  God,  as  it  appeared, 
cured  incurable  cases,  it  was  hard  to  deny  to 
her  the  power  of  curing  curable  cases  also.  It 
does  not  prove,  that  is  to  say,  that  a  cure  is  not 
miraculous,  if  it  might  have  been  cured  by  human 
aid.  And  it  is  interesting  and  suggestive  to  re¬ 
member  that  of  such  cases  one  hears  little  or  no¬ 
thing.  For  every  startling  miracle  that  is  verified 
in  the  Bureau,  I  wonder  how  many  persons  go 
home  quietly,  freed  from  some  maddening  little 
illness  by  the  mercy  of  Mary — some  illness  that  is 
worthless  as  a  “  case  ”  in  scientific  eyes,  yet  none 
the  less  as  real  as  is  its  cure? 

Of  course  one  element  that  tends  to  keep  from 
the  grasp  of  the  imagination  all  the  miracles  of  the 
place  is  all  this  scientific  phraseology.  In  the 
simple  story  of  the  Gospel,  it  seems  almost  super- 
naturally  natural  that  a  man  should  have  “  lain 
with  an  infirmity  for  forty  years,”  and  should,  at 
the  word  of  Jesus  Christ,  have  taken  up  his  bed 
and  walked;  or  that,  as  in  the  “  Acts,”  another’s 
“  feet  and  ankle-bones  should  receive  strength  ” 
by  the  power  of  the  Holy  Name.  But  when  we 
come  to  tuberculosis  and  mat  de  Pott  and  lesion 


THE  BASILICA.  SIDE  VIEW 


{ 


LOURDES 


69 


incurable  and  “  hysterical  simulation/'  in  some 
manner  we  seem  to  find  ourselves  in  rather  a 
breathless  and  stuffy  room,  where  the  white  flower 
of  the  supernatural  appears  strangely  languid  to 
the  eye  of  the  imagination. 

That,  however,  is  all  as  it  should  be.  We  are 
bound  to  have  these  things.  Perhaps  the  most 
startling  miracle  of  all  is  that  the  Bureau  and  the 
Grotto  stand  side  by  side,  and  that  neither  stifles 
the  other.  Is  it  possible  that  here  at  last  Science 
and  Religion  will  come  to  terms,  and  each  confess 
with  wonder  the  capacities  of  the  other,  and,  with 
awe,  that  divine  power  that  makes  them  what  they 
are,  and  has  “  set  them  their  bounds  which  they 
shall  not  pass?”  It  would  be  remarkable  if  France, 
of  all  countries,  should  be  the  scene  of  that  recon¬ 
ciliation  between  these  estranged  sisters. 

That  night,  after  dinner,  I  went  out  once  more 
to  see  the  procession  with  torches;  and  this  time 
my  friend  and  I  each  took  a  candle,  that  we  might 
join  in  that  act  of  worship.  First,  however,  I  went 
down  to  the  robinets — the  taps  which  flow  between 
the  Grotto  and  the  piscines — and,  after  a  heart¬ 
crushing  struggle,  succeeded  in  filling  my  bottle 
with  the  holy  water.  It  was  astonishing  how  selfish 
one  felt  while  still  in  the  battle,  and  how  mag¬ 
nanimous  when  one  had  gained  the  victory.  I 
filled  also  the  bottle  of  a  voluble  French  priest, 


70 


LOURDES 


who  despairingly  extended  it  toward  me  as  he  still 
fought  in  the  turmoil.  “  Eh ,  bienl  ”  cried  a  stal¬ 
wart  Frenchwoman  at  my  side,  who  had  filled  her 
bottle  and  could  not  extricate  herself.  “  If  you 
will  not  permit  me  to  depart,  I  remain!  ”  The 
argument  was  irresistible ;  the  crowd  laughed 
childishly  and  let  her  out. 

Now,  I  regret  to  say  that  once  more  the  churches 
were  outlined  in  fairy  electric  lamps,  that  the 
metallic  garlands  round  our  Mother’s  statue  blazed 
with  them;  that,  even  worse,  the  old  castle  on  the 
hill  and  the  far  away  Calvary  were  also  illu¬ 
minated;  and,  worst  of  all,  that  the  procession 
concluded  with  fireworks — rockets  and  bombs. 
Miracles  in  the  afternoon;  fireworks  in  the 
evening ! 

Yet  the  more  I  think  of  it,  the  less  am  I  dis¬ 
pleased.  When  one  reflects  that  more  than  half 
of  the  enormous  crowd  came,  probably,  from  tiny 
villages  in  France — where  a  rocket  is  as  rare  as 
an  angelic  visitation;  and,  on  the  carnal  side,  as 
beautiful  in  their  eyes — it  seems  a  very  narrow¬ 
minded  thing  to  object.  It  is  true  that  you  and  I 
connect  fireworks  with  Maf eking  night  or  Queen 
Victoria’s  Jubilee;  and  that  they  seem  therefore 
incongruous  when  used  to  celebrate  a  visitation 
of  God.  But  it  is  not  so  with  these  people.  For 
them  it  is  a  natural  and  beautiful  way  of  telling 


LOURDES 


7* 


the  glory  of  Him  who  is  the  Dayspring  from  on 
high,  who  is  the  Light  to  lighten  the  Gentiles, 
whose  Mother  is  the  Stella  Matutina,  whose  people 
once  walked  in  darkness  and  now  have  seen  a  great 
Light.  It  is  their  answer — the  reflection  in  the 
depths  of  their  sea — to  the  myriad  lights  of  that 
heaven  which  shines  over  Lourdes.  Therefore  let 
us  leave  the  fireworks  in  peace. 

It  was  a  very  moving  thing  to  walk  in  that  pro¬ 
cession,  with  a  candle  in  one  hand  and  a  little 
paper  book  in  the  other,  and  help  to  sing  the  story 
of  Bernadette,  with  the  unforgettable  Aves  at  the 
end  of  each  verse,  and  the  Laiidate  Mariam ,  and 
the  Nicene  Creed.  Credo  in  .  .  .  unarn  sanctam 
Catholicam  et  Apostolicain  Ecclesiam .  My  heart 
leaped  at  that.  For  where  else  but  in  the  Catholic 
Church  do  such  things  happen  as  these  that  I  had 
seen?  Imagine,  if  you  please,  miracles  in  Man¬ 
chester  !  Certainly  they  might  happen  there,  if 
there  were  sufficient  Catholics  gathered  in  His 
Name;  but  put  for  Manchester,  Exeter  Hall  or  St. 
Paul’s  Cathedral !  The  thought  is  blindingly  ab¬ 
surd.  No ;  the  Christianity  of  Jesus  Christ  lives 
only  in  the  Catholic  Church. 

There  alone  in  the  whole  round  world  do  you 
find  that  combination  of  lofty  doctrine,  magnifi¬ 
cent  moral  teaching,  the  frank  recognition  of  the 
Cross ;  sacramentalism  logically  carried  out,  yet 


72 


LOURDES 


gripping  the  heart  as  no  amateur  mysticism  can 
do;  and  miracles.  “  Mercy  and  Truth  have  met 
together.”  “  These  signs  shall  follow  them  that 
believe.  .  .  .  Faith  can  remove  mountains.  .  . 
All  things  are  possible  to  him  that  believes.  .  . 
Whatsoever  you  shall  ask  of  the  Father  in  My 
Name.  .  .  .  Where  two  or  three  are  gathered  to¬ 
gether  in  My  Name,  there  am  I  in  the  midst  of 
them.”  There  alone,  where  souls  are  built  upon 
Peter,  do  these  things  really  happen. 

I  have  been  asked  lately  whether  I  am  “  happy  ” 
in  the  Catholic  Church.  Happy !  What  can  one 
say  to  a  question  like  that?  Does  one  ask  a  man 
who  wakes  up  from  a  foolish  dream  to  sunshine  in 
his  room,  and  to  life  and  reality,  whether  he  is 
happy?  Of  course  many  non-Catholics  are  happy. 
I  was  happy  myself  as  an  Anglican;  but  as  a 
Catholic  one  does  not  use  the  word;  one  does  not 
think  about  it.  The  whole  of  life  is  different;  that 
is  all  that  can  be  said.  Faith  is  faith,  not  hope; 
God  is  Light,  not  twilight;  eternity,  heaven,  hell, 
purgatory,  sin  and  its  consequences — these  things 
are  facts,  not  guesses  and  conjectures  and  suspi¬ 
cions  desperately  clung  to.  “  How  hard  it  is  to 
be  a  Christian!  ”  moans  the  persevering  non- 
Catholic.  “  How  impossible  it  is  to  be  anything 
else  !  ”  cries  the  Catholic. 

We  went  round,  then,  singing.  The  procession 


LOURDES 


73 


was  so  huge  that  it  seemed  to  have  no  head  and 
no  tail.  It  involved  itself  a  hundred  times  over; 
it  swirled  in  the  square,  it  humped  itself  over  the 
Rosary  Church;  it  elongated  itself  half  a  mile 
away  up  beyond  our  Mother’s  garlanded  statue ;  it 
eddied  round  the  Grotto.  It  was  one  immense 
pool  and  river  of  lights  and  song.  Each  group 
sang  by  itself  till  it  was  overpowered  by  another ; 
men  and  women  and  children  strolled  along 
patiently  singing  and  walking,  knowing  nothing  of 
where  they  went,  nothing  of  what  they  would  be 
singing  five  minutes  hence.  It  depended  on  the 
voice-power  of  their  neighbours. 

For  myself,  I  found  myself  in  a  dozen  groups, 
before,  at  last,  after  an  hour  or  so,  I  fell  out  of  the 
procession  and  went  home.  Now  I  walked  cheek 
by  jowl  with  a  retired  officer ;  now  with  an  artisan ; 
once  there  came  swiftly  up  behind  a  company  of 
“  Noelites  M — those  vast  organizations  of  boys  and 
girls  in  France — singing  the  Laudate  Mariam  to 
my  Ave  Maria ;  now  in  the  middle  of  a  group  of 
shop-girls  who  exchanged  remarks  with  one 
another  whenever  they  could  fetch  breath.  I  think 
it  was  all  the  most  joyous  and  the  most  spontaneous 
(as  it  was  certainly  the  largest)  human  function 
in  which  I  have  ever  taken  part.  I  have  no  idea 
whether  there  were  any  organizers  of  it  all — at 
least  I  saw  none.  Once  or  twice  a  solitary  priest 


74 


LOURDES 


in  the  midst,  walking  backward  and  waving  his 
arms,  attempted  to  reconcile  conflicting  melodies ; 
once  a  very  old  priest,  with  a  voice  like  the  tuba 
stop  on  the  organ,  turned  a  humorously  furious 
face  over  his  shoulder  to  quell  some  mistake — from 
his  mouth,  the  while  issuing  this  amazingly  pun¬ 
gent  volume  of  sound.  But  I  think  these  were  the 
only  attempts  at  organization  that  I  saw. 

And  so  at  last  I  dropped  out  and  went  home, 
hoarse  but  very  well  content.  I  had  walked  for 
more  than  an  hour — from  the  statue,  over  the  lower 
church  and  down  again,  up  the  long  avenue,  and 
back  again  to  the  statue.  The  fireworks  were  over, 
the  illuminations  died,  and  the  day  was  done ;  yet 
still  the  crowds  went  round  and  the  voice  of  con¬ 
flicting  melody  went  up  without  cessation.  As  I 
went  home  the  sound  was  still  in  my  ears.  As  I 
dropped  off  to  sleep,  I  still  heard  it. 


IX. 


NEXT  morning  I  awoke  with  a  heavy  heart,  for 
we  were  to  leave  in  the  motor  at  half-past  eight, 
I  had  still  a  few  errands  to  do,  and  had  made  no 
arrangements  for  saying  Mass ;  so  I  went  out 
quickly,  a  little  after  seven,  and  up  to  the  Rosary 
Church  to  get  some  pious  objects  blessed.  It  was 
useless :  I  could  not  find  the  priest  of  whom  I  had 
been  told,  whose  business  it  is  perpetually  to  bless 
such  things.  I  went  to  the  basilica,  then  round 
by  the  hill-path  down  to  the  Grotto,  where  I  be¬ 
came  wedged  suddenly  and  inextricably  into  a 
silent  crowd. 

For  a  while  I  did  not  understand  what  they  were 
doing  beyond  hearing  Mass ;  for  I  knew  that,  of 
course,  a  Mass  was  proceeding  just  round  the 
corner  in  the  cave.  But  presently  I  perceived  that 
these  were  intending  communicants.  So  I  made 
what  preparation  I  could,  standing  there ;  and 
thanked  God  and  His  Mother  for  this  unexpected 
opportunity  of  saying  good-bye  in  the  best  way — 
for  I  was  as  sad  as  a  school-boy  going  the  rounds 
of  the  house  on  Black  Monday — and  after  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  or  so  I  was  kneeling  at  the  grill,  be- 


7  6 


LOURDES 


neath  the  very  image  of  Mary.  After  making  my 
thanksgiving,  still  standing  on  the  other  side,  I 
blessed  the  objects  myself — strictly  against  all 
rules,  I  imagine — and  came  home  to  breakfast; 
and  before  nine  we  were  on  our  way. 

We  were  all  silent  as  we  progressed  slowly  and 
carefully  through  the  crowded  streets,  seeing  once 
more  the  patient  brancardiers  and  the  pitiful  litters 
on  their  way  to  the  piscines.  I  could  not  have  be¬ 
lieved  that  I  could  have  become  so  much  attached 
to  a  place  in  three  summer  days.  As  I  have  said 
before,  everything  was  against  it.  There  was  no 
leisure,  no  room  to  move,  no  silence,  no  sense  of 
familiarity.  All  was  hot  and  noisy  and  crowded 
and  dusty  and  unknown.  Yet  I  felt  that  it  was 
such  a  home  of  the  soul  as  I  never  visited  before 
— of  course  it  is  a  home,  for  it  is  the  Mother  that 
makes  the  home. 

We  saw  no  more  of  the  Grotto  nor  the  churches 
nor  the  square  nor  the  statue.  Our  road  led  out 
in  such  a  direction  that,  after  leaving  the  hotel, 
we  had  only  commonplace  streets,  white  houses, 
shops,  hotels  and  crowds ;  and  soon  we  had  passed 
from  the  very  outskirts  of  the  town,  and  were  be¬ 
ginning  with  quickening  speed  to  move  out  along 
one  of  those  endless  straight  roads  that  are  the 
glory  of  France’s  locomotion. 

Yet  I  turned  round  in  my  seat,  sick  at  heart, 
and  pulled  the  blind  that  hung  over  the  rear 


LOURDES 


77 


window  of  the  car.  No,  Lourdes  was  gone! 
There  was  the  ring  of  the  eternal  hills,  blue  against 
the  blue  summer  sky,  with  their  shades  of  green 
beneath  sloping  to  the  valleys,  and  the  rounded 
bastions  that  hold  them  up.  The  Gave  was  gone, 
the  churches  gone,  the  Grotto — all  was  gone. 
Lourdes  might  be  a  dream  of  the  night. 

No,  Lourdes  was  not  gone.  For  there,  high 
on  a  hill,  above  where  the  holy  city  lay,  stood  the 
cross  we  had  seen  first  upon  our  entrance,  telling 
us  that  if  health  is  a  gift  of  God,  it  is  not  the 
greatest;  that  the  Physician  of  souls,  who  healed 
the  sick,  and  without  whom  not  one  sparrow  falls 
to  the  ground,  and  not  one  pang  is  suffered,  Him¬ 
self  had  not  where  to  lay  His  head,  and  died  in 
pain  upon  the  Tree. 

And  even  as  I  looked  we  wheeled  a  corner,  and 
the  cross  was  gone. 

How  is  it  possible  to  end  such  a  story  without 
bathos?  I  think  it  is  not  possible,  yet  I  must  end 
it.  An  old  French  priest  said  one  day  at  Lourdes, 
to  one  of  those  with  whom  I  travelled,  that  he 
feared  that  in  these  times  the  pilgrims  did  not 
pray  so  much  as  they  once  did,  and  that  this  was 
a  bad  sign.  He  spoke  also  of  France  as  a  whole, 
and  its  fall.  My  friend  said  to  him  that,  in  her 


78 


LOURDES 


opinion,  if  these  pilgrims  could  but  be  led  as  an 
army  to  Paris — an  army,  that  is,  with  no  weapons 
except  their  Rosaries — the  country  could  be  re¬ 
taken  in  a  day. 

Now,  I  do  not  know  whether  the  pilgrims  once 
prayed  more  than  they  do  now ;  I  only  know  that 
I  never  saw  any  one  pray  so  much;  and  I  cannot 
help  agreeing  with  my  friend  that,  if  this  power 
could  be  organized,  we  should  hear  little  more  of 
the  apostasy  of  France.  Even  as  it  is,  I  cannot 
understand  the  superior  attitude  that  Christian 
Englishmen  take  up  with  regard  to  France.  It  is 
true  that  in  many  districts  religion  is  on  a  down¬ 
ward  course,  that  the  churches  are  neglected,  and 
that  even  infidelity  is  becoming  a  fashion;1  but  I 
wonder  very  much  whether,  on  the  whole,  taking 
Lourdes  into  account,  the  average  piety  of  France, 
is  not  on  a  very  much  higher  level  than  the  piety 
of  England.  The  government,  as  all  the  world' 
now  knows,  is  not  in  the  least  representative  of  the 
country;  but,  sad  to  relate,  the  Frenchman  is  apt 
to  extend  his  respect  for  the  law  into  an  assump¬ 
tion  of  its  morality.  When  a  law  is  passed,  there 
is  an  end  of  it. 

Yet,  judging  by  the  intensity  of  faith  and  love 
and  resignation  that  is  evident  at  Lourdes,  and 

1  It  must  be  remembered  that  this  was  written  six 
years  ago,  and  is  no  longer  true. 


LOURDES 


8i 

the  Catacombs,  and  in  the  whole  history  of 
Christendom,  true  lovers  of  her  Son  have  always 
seen  her — a  Mother  of  God  and  man,  tender, 
authoritative,  silent,  and  effective ! 

Yet,  strangely  enough,  it  is  not  at  all  the 
ordinary  and  conventional  character  of  a  merely 
tender  mother  that  reveals  itself  at  Lourdes — one 
who  is  simply  desirous  of  relieving  pain  and  giving 
what  is  asked.  There  comes  upon  one  instead  the 
sense  of  a  tremendous  personage — Regina  Coeli  as 
well  as  Consolatrix  Afflictorum — one  who  says 
“  No  ”  as  well  as  “  Yes,”  and  with  the  same 
serenity;  yet  with  the  “  No  ”  gives  strength  to  re¬ 
ceive  it.  I  have  heard  it  said  that  the  greatest 
miracle  of  all  at  Lourdes  is  the  peace  and  resigna¬ 
tion,  even  the  happiness,  of  those  who,  after  ex¬ 
pectation  has  been  wrought  to  the  highest,  go  dis¬ 
appointed  away,  as  sick  as  they  came.  Certainly 
that  is  an  amazing  fact.  The  tears  of  the  young 
man  in  the  piscine  were  the  only  tears  of  sorrow  I 
saw  at  Lourdes. 

Mary,  then,  has  appeared  to  me  in  a  new  light 
since  I  have  visited  Lourdes.  I  shall  in  future 
not  only  hate  to  offend  her,  but  fear  it  also.  It 
is  a  fearful  thing  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  that 
Mother  who  allows  the  broken  sufferer  to  crawl 
across  France  to  her  feet — and  then  to  crawl  back 
again.  She  is  one  of  the  Maries  of  Chartres,  that 
G 


82 


LOURDES 


reveals  herself  here,  dark,  mighty,  dominant,  and 
all  but  inexorable ;  not  the  Mary  of  an  ecclesias¬ 
tical  shop,  who  dwells  amid  tinsel  and  tuberoses. 
She  is  Sedes  Sapientice,  Turris  Eburnea ,  Virgo 
Paritura ,  strong  and  tall  and  glorious,  pierced  by 
seven  swords,  yet  serene  as  she  looks  to  her  Son. 

Yet,  at  the  same  time,  the  tenderness  of  her 
great  heart  shows  itself  at  Lourdes  almost  beyond 
bearing.  She  is  so  great  and  so  loving !  It  affects 
those  to  whom  one  speaks — the  quiet  doctors,  even 
those  who,  through  some  confusion  of  mind  or 
some  sin,  find  it  hard  to  believe;  the  strong  bran- 
cardiers,  who  carry  their  quivering  burdens  with 
such  infinite  care ;  the  very  sick  themselves,  coming 
back  from  the  piscines  in  agony,  yet  with  the  faces 
of  those  who  come  down  from  the  altar  after  Holy 
Communion.  The  whole  place  is  alive  with  Mary 
and  the  love  of  God — from  the  inadequate  statue 
at  the  Grotto  to  the  brazen  garlands  in  the  square, 
even  as  far  as  the  illuminated  castle  and  the  rockets 
that  burst  and  bang  against  the  steady  stars.  If 
I  were  sick  of  some  deadly  disease,  and  it  were 
revealed  to  me  that  I  must  die,  yet  none  the  less 
I  should  go  to  Lourdes ;  for  if  I  should  not  be 
healed  by  Mary,  I  could  at  least  learn  how  to 
suffer  as  a  Christian  ought.  God  has  chosen  this 
place— He  only  knows  why,  as  He,  too,  alone 
chooses  which  man  shall  suffer  and  which  be  glad 


LOURDES 


83 


— He  has  chosen  this  place  to  show  His  power;  and 
therefore  has  sent  His  Mother  there,  that  we  may 
look  through  her  to  Him. 

Is  this,  then,  all  subjectivity  and  romantic 
dreaming?  Well,  but  there  are  the  miracles  I 


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1.  (JAN.  i).  Letters  and  Instructions  of  St.  Ignatius  Loyola, 
I.  Translated  by  D.  F.  O’Leary.  Selected  and  Edited  with 
Notes  by  the  Rev.  A.  Goodier,  S.J. 

The  letters  of  St.  Ignatius  Loyola  have  never  before 
appeared  in  English.  Only  lately  has  a  complete  collection 
been  attempted  in  the  original  Spanish;  it  is  not  yet  finally 
concluded.  The  selection  here  given,  to  be  continued  in 
subsequent  volumes,  endeavours  to  give  to  English  readers 
all  the  letters  of  the  Saint  which  may  seem  to  throw  light 
on  his  spiritual  life. 

2.  (JAN.  15).  A  Defence  of  English  Catholics,  Vol.  I.  Written 
by  William  Allen  ^afterwards  Cardinal],  1584.  With  a 
Preface  by  His  Eminence  the  Cardinal  Archbishop  of  West¬ 
minster. 

This  book,  written  by  the  author  in  both  Latin  and  Eng¬ 
lish,  was  an  answer  to  a  pamphlet  entitled  “  The  Execution 
of  Justice  in  England,”  which  was  almost  certainly  the 
work  of  Lord  Burleigh,  and  was  being  circulated  on  the 
Continent  in  the  hope  of  convincing  Europe  of  the  justice 
of  the  Elizabethan  persecution.  Allen’s  volume  is  the  first 
great  public  claim  to  the  title  of  “  Martyr  ”  made  in  behalf 
of  Elizabeth’s  victims. 

3.  (FEB.  1).  S.  Antonino  and  Mediaeval  Economics.  By  the 
Rev.  Bede  Jarrett.  O.P. 

In  these  days  of  economic  studies  it  is  well  that  we 
should  be  referred  back  to  the  “  Patron  of  Economists  ” 
who,  if  he  failed  in  his  high  endeavour,  nevertheless  won¬ 
derfully  anticipated  modern  thought  in  its  study  of  the  poor 
and  the  working-classes.  In  the  hands  of  Fr.  Jarrett,  O.P., 
an  expert  in  this  particular  period  of  European  history,  the 
life  of  S.  Antonino,  also  a  Dominican,  becomes  a  study  of 
the  economic  conditions  of  his  age. 

4.  (FEB.  15.)  A  Defence  of  English  Catholics.  By  William 
Allen.  Vol.  II. 

This  second  part  mainly  defends  Catholics  in  their  atti¬ 
tude  towards  the  Crown. 


THE  CATHOLIC  LIBRARY 


VOL. 

5.  (MAR.  i.)  Holy  Mass:  The  Eucharistic  Sacrifice  and  the 
Roman  Liturgy.  By  the  Rev.  Herbert  Lucas,  S.J.  Vol.  I. 

This  work  is  contained  in  two  volumes.  It  may  be 
said  to  bring  together  the  result  of  some  thirty  years’  study, 
by  one  who  has  long  since  shown  himself  a  master  of  his 
subject.  It  treats  the  Holy  Mass  historically,  but  does  not 
omit  due  consideration  of  its  devotional  side. 

6.  (MAR.  15.)  Campion’s  Ten  Reasons.  The  original  Latin 
text,  with  a  translation  by  the  Rev.  Joseph  Rickaby,  S.J., 
and  an  historical  Introduction  by  the  Rev.  John  Hungerford 
Pollen,  S.J. 

This  is  the  historic  volume  which  Blessed  Edmund  Cam¬ 
pion  wrote  and  printed  privately  in  England,  for  the  circu¬ 
lation  of  which  a  price  was  set  upon  his  head,  and  which 
in  the  end  cost  him  his  life.  Father  Pollen  in  his  Introduc¬ 
tion  also  describes  Campion’s  famous  “  Challenge.” 

7.  (APRIL  1.)  Holy  Mass:  The  Eucharistic  Sacrifice  and  the 
Roman  Liturgy.  By  the  Rev.  Herbert  Lucas,  S.J.  Vol.  II. 

The  second  volume,  completing  the  work,  treats  of  the 
Mass  after  the  Offertory,  and  is  mainly  occupied  with  the 
Canon. 

8.  (APRIL  15.)  The  Triumphs  over  Death.  By  the  Ven. 
Robert  Southwell,  poet  and  martyr.  Together  with  three 
famous  letters  by  the  same.  Edited  by  J.  W.  Trotman. 

The  text  of  this  volume  has  been  taken  directly  from  the 
existing  original  MSS.  The  book  is  rather  a  collection  of 
thoughts  than  a  continuous  treatise,  and  might  well  be 
compared  with  the  Imitation  of  Christ.  It  was  first  ad¬ 
dressed  to  Philip,  Earl  of  Arundel,  who  was  also  himself 
a  martyr  for  the  faith. 

9.  (MAY  1.)  Parish  Life  in  the  Reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  By 
W.  P.  M.  Kennedy,  M.A.  (Dublin  and  Oxon),  F.  R.  Hist.  S., 
Professor  of  History  at  the  University,  Antigonish,  Nova 
Scotia. 

This  is  a  study  of  original  documents  on  a  subject  that 
has  been,  hitherto  almost  entirely  unworked.  Professor  Ken¬ 
nedy  is  himself  a  convert  through  history,  and  is  well  known 
in  both  continents  for  his  thoroughness  of  logic.  This 
volume  throws  light  not  only  on  the  surface  Parish  Life 
which  belonged  to  the  Church  of  Elizabeth,  but  also  on  that 
other  Parish  Life  which  was  being  driven  by  her  into  the 
catacombs. 


THE  CATHOLIC  LIBRARY 


VOL. 

10.  (MAY  15.)  The  Religious  Poems  of  Crashaw.  A  Study  and 
a  Selection.  By  R.  A.  Eric  Shepherd. 

The  revival  of  interest  in  the  great  convert  poet  of  the 
early  seventeenth  century  more  than  justifies  this  reprint 
and  study  of  his  religious  works.  Francis  Thompson  owed 
much  to  him,  and  in  more  than  one  place  made  much  of 
him;  once  only  he  found  fault  with  him,  and  this  fault-find¬ 
ing  provides  Mr.  Shepherd — himself  a  poet  who  has  already 
made  his  mark — with  the  theme  for  his  brilliant  and  sug¬ 
gestive  study. 

11.  (JUNE  1.)  S.  Bernardino,  the  People’s  Preacher:  with  se¬ 
lections  from  his  sermons.  By  Maisie  Ward. 

In  spite  of  recent  lives  of  S.  Bernardino  there  is  ample 
room  for  this  study  of  perhaps  the  greatest  popular  preacher 
the  world  has  known,  as  the  Italian  Renaissance  testifies  in 
countless  ways.  Miss  Ward  has  happily  combined  three 
features  in  her  work — a  picture  of  the  man  and  his  times, 
an  impression  of  him  as  an  orator,  and  a  happy  selection 
of  specimens  to  illustrate  his  mind,  translated  from  the 
original. 

12.  (JLTXE  15.)  Lourdes.  By  the  Very  Rev.  Mgr.  R.  H.  Ben¬ 
son,  M.A. 

The  series  of  articles  on  Lourdes  which  Mgr.  Benson 
wrote  some  six  years  ago  for  the  “  Ave  Maria  ”  are  too 
valuable  to  be  lost;  and  to  rescue  such  work  from  oblivion 
is  part  of  the  scheme  of  the  “  Catholic  Library.”  In  these 
articles  we  have  a  vivid  impression  of  the  place  and  all  it 
signifies,  written  down  by  an  onlooker,  who  is  both  en¬ 
thusiastic  and  critical.  Mgr.  Benson  has  added  a  useful 
preface  to  the  volume,  and  notes  to  bring  his  essays  up  to 
date.  There  are  eight  illustrations. 


IN  THE  PRESS 


13.  (JULY  1 P  The  Question  of  Miracles.  By  the  Rev.  G.  H. 
Joyce,  S.J.,  Professor  of  Dogmatic  Theology  at  St.  Beuno’s 
College,  North  Wales. 


THE  CATHOLIC  LIBRARY 


VOL. 

14.  (JULY  15).  Commentary  on  the  Seven  Penitential  Psalms. 
By  the  Blessed  John  Fisher.  Edited  with  a  footnote  glos¬ 
sary  by  J.  S.  Phillimore,  M.A.,  Professor  of  Latin  at  the  Uni¬ 
versity  of  Glasgow.  Vol.  I. 

15.  (AUG.  1).  Some  Thoughts  on  Catholic  Apologetics.  A  Plea 
for  Interpretation.  By  Edward  Ingram  Watkin,  B.A., 
New  College,  Oxford. 

16.  (AUG.  15.)  Early  Catholic  Hymnody:  A  short  account  of 
Catholic  hymns  and  their  writers  from  St.  Ambrose  to  the 
Renaissance.  With  many  original  Latin  hymns  and  trans¬ 
lations.  By  Joseph  Clayton. 

17.  (SEPT.  1).  Down  West,  and  other  Sketches  of  Irish  Life. 
By  Alice  Dease.  With  a  Preface  by  Sir  Henry  Belling¬ 
ham.  Bart. 


IN  IMMEDIATE  PREPARATION  ARE: 

1.  Blessed  John  Fisher’s  Commentary  on  the  Penitential 
Psalms.  Part  II.  Edited  by  J.  S.  Phillimore,  M.A. 

2.  First  Principles  of  Moral.  By  the  Rev.  H.  Davis,  S.J.,  Pro¬ 
fessor  of  Moral  Theology  at  St.  Beuno’s  College,  North 
Wales. 

3.  Modern  Catholic  Hymnody:  from  the  fifteenth  to  the  nine¬ 
teenth  century.  Including  notes  on  all  hymns  in  the  Bre¬ 
viary.  By  Joseph  Clayton. 

4.  Xavier  and  the  Opening  of  the  East.  By  A.  Hilliard 
Atteridge. 


LONDON : 

THE  MANRESA  PRESS,  ROEHAMPTON,  SAV. 
B.  HERDER,  68,  GREAT  RUSSELL  ST.,  W.C- 


DATE  DUE 


